A weekend in Monte-Carlo, Monaco: the French Mediterranean coast built for James Bond
We iron our best shirts and make for the glitz and glamour of a long weekend in the mind-blowing capital of Monaco, home of ‘Diamonds are Forever’ singer (and Attitude favourite) Shirley Bassey
A straight couple’s sharp silhouette backlit by the dazzle of a sports car’s headlights, the woman’s sequinned cocktail dress shimmering like diamonds, was not on my bingo card of memorable images for 2024. (Or theirs – with their probable net worth, who needs bingo?)
But such is the James Bond-ready scene outside Peruvian restaurant COYA Monte-Carlo, where this humble traveller – who once slept among rats at Milano Centrale train station, and all manner of elaborate, hissing insects in a shack in a Costa Rican jungle – witnesses the world’s most glamorous traffic jam. And I don’t mean the Monaco Grand Prix, which snakes the city’s manicured streets each May.
Dining and cuisine
Indeed, the unofficial dress code at COYA, a jewel in the gleaming gastronomy crown of Monaco – one of the world’s richest countries and the second smallest after Vatican City – is pure Oscars afterparty realness. Dining here is a feast for the eyes and mouth, from the partial panorama of the Mediterranean to the tropical ambiance of its foliage-filled interior, packed with statues of Inca warriors, gargantuan pottery and hand-carved candlesticks.
The cuisine is presented with such flair as to be unforgettable: a smouldering scent precedes the zingy taste of a fresh fruit cocktail lifted from a smoke-filled box, the word ‘COYA’ seared into the lemon rind, before tender avocado and tuna tartare bursting with flavour is served in a pestle and mortar of volcanic stone.
The COYA Signature Dessert Platter is probably the best pudding I’ve ever eaten (save for my working-class hero grandmother’s homemade treacle sponge): subtle dragon fruit, crunchy churros, light-as-a-feather cheesecake, an indulgent chocolate crumble number, and much more – all bathed in theatrical dry ice. Absurd.
Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo facilities and decor
The award for most exceptional meal of my life, however, goes to L’Abysse Monte-Carlo, a Japanese restaurant housed within Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo, our sumptuous base for a four-night jaunt in Welshwoman Shirley Bassey’s adopted hometown, where the OG diva and 2023 Attitude Honorary Gay Award winner enjoys a temperate climate and over 300 days of sunshine a year.
I want to describe L’Abysse’s minimalist chic décor, but to do that justice, I must first describe the 128-year-old hotel’s slightly more decadent visage for contrast. Known as a ‘Belle Époque masterpiece’, and thus a truly pristine preservation of late 19th-century French flourish, it is pure opulence, fresh out of a fairytale.
Think delicate frescoes and giant chandeliers; think gleaming marble and mosaic flooring and stucco mouldings like freshly whipped meringue; think a showstopping, stained-glass dome designed by engineering icon Gustave Eiffel, famed for the Eiffel Tower in Paris, in the Salon Jardin d’Hiver. The scale defies belief.
Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo rooms
Our suite boasts a balcony of robust but elegant wrought-iron scrollwork that is fit for a princess and overlooks the picturesque Port Hercule. The exquisite furniture – surely decades old but perfectly maintained – is so charming, you half expect it to start singing à la Beauty and the Beast.
To admire all the hotel has to offer, including the sleek, stylish Campari Lounge, or the stunning, 75,000-square-foot Thermes Marins Monte-Carlo spa, and five minutes away by air-conditioned transfer, the hotel’s photoshoot-ready private beach club, would take an age.
This is an excerpt from a feature appearing in Attitude’s January/February 2025 issue. For more information about our stay, you can visit the Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer official website.
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