The Best Places to Drink and Stay in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin

A glass modernist tower rising from a rocky cliffside above Monaco, the Maybourne Riviera is a Forbes Five Star hotel that earns its dramatic entrance before you've unpacked. The group also runs Claridge's, which tells you where the bar sits. Sixty-five rooms were each designed in collaboration with artists and architects, and the infinity pool is literally carved from the cliff. Coco Chanel once built a villa nearby, so the neighborhood has form.

Technically on the French side of the border, this old-school SBM resort sits on a wooded mini-peninsula with sea views that do most of the heavy lifting. The 1930s bones are intact, the pool deck still carries the ghost of grander poolside social theater, and a free shuttle connects you to Casino Square in ten minutes for anyone who finds tranquility suspicious.

The terrace hangs over the Mediterranean close enough that you feel slightly implicated in it. This is the bar at the Maybourne Riviera, a minimalist perch where the sea does most of the decorating and the drinks follow suit, leaning into the coastal setting rather than competing with it. Floor-to-ceiling windows mean the inside table isn't much of a consolation prize. The kind of bar where the view sets the pace and nobody seems to mind.