Lonely Planet Review

Matisse and Chekhov both stayed at the 1860-built Beau Rivage in its belle époque heyday, but they wouldn't recognise the place after its millennium strip and refit by urban architect/interior designer Jean-Michel Wilmotte, who previously put his stamp on French icons like the Louvre and the Champs Elysées.

Nice's pebbled beaches cue the cool minimalist decor at this 118-room place, with real beach pebbles decoupaged beneath the bathroom floors of the deluxe rooms and junior suites. Framed by floor-to-ceiling interior wooden shutters and contemporary black and white photos (often of pebbles), beds are dressed in soft, snow-white cotton draped with pure linen, and flanked by tall, pebble-filled glass vases. Tech toys include flat-screen interactive TVs, wi-fi, and on-demand films. Some first-floor rooms open to a timber garden deck. You can breakfast in the dining room, or in your room, and the restaurant Les Galets (which translates to, you guessed it, 'the pebbles') serves dinner nightly, with chrome salt and pepper shakers designed like (you guessed it again) little pebbles.