Plage Keller

Plage Keller has been on the Garoupe bay at Cap d'Antibes since 1931, which makes it one of the oldest continuously operating beach establishments on the coast. The bay faces east across the Baie des Anges towards Nice with the southern Alps stacked up behind, so mornings here get full sun and the water is unusually sheltered and clear. Two wooden jetties run out over it, and they are the best thing about the place: you can swim off them into deep water without wading through the shallows. Service runs from breakfast right through to dinner, either at table or brought to your lounger, with a separate evening restaurant, Le Cesar, handling the more serious cooking. The kitchen works around Mediterranean produce and fish. The guest book from the mid-twentieth century reads like a Riviera roll call, with Chaplin, Maurice Chevalier, Picasso and the tennis champion Suzanne Lenglen among the regulars, and the club still trades quietly on that history rather than shouting about it. Valet parking helps, because the road down to La Garoupe is narrow and parking is scarce in August. The season runs from mid-April to mid-October and the club closes completely outside it.