People ask me what it was like to live in Cannes and I never quite know where to start.

The honest answer is: it was like living inside a film that occasionally went slightly off-script. Glamorous and ridiculous in equal measure. Completely addictive. The kind of life that ruins you for anywhere normal — which is probably why I'm still on the Côte d'Azur twenty years later and show absolutely no signs of leaving.

I arrived bilingual, with a background in Human Resources, and approximately zero idea of what was about to happen. Cannes runs on hospitality. Hospitality runs on people who can speak to both sides of the room without losing their composure. Within weeks I was in luxury hotels. Within months, inside the world of the Cannes Film Festival. Within a year, I had accepted that this was not a normal life and decided I was perfectly fine with that.

Spoiler: I was more than fine.

The Festival — eleven days when reality takes a holiday

The Cannes Film Festival is not an event. It is a force of nature that descends on a medium-sized city every May and completely rewires reality for eleven days. The Croisette fills with limousines, camera crews, security personnel, and people in extraordinary outfits making extremely purposeful phone calls. Hotels triple their prices. Restaurants require reservations that were made in February. The sky is always blue. It is one of the Festival's more reliable tricks.

I worked it every year. Chaos, magic, and completely exhausting — frequently all three within the same hour.

One morning, early — the kind of early where the Croisette is still quiet and the light is doing something extraordinary over the water — I turned a corner and came face to face with Karl Lagerfeld. No entourage. No warning. No buffer of assistants. He was immaculate at what must have been seven in the morning, in the way that some people simply are. We looked at each other for a fraction of a second. He gave the faintest nod — the kind that means yes, this is happening, we are both here, let us not make it strange — and then he was gone.

I stood on the pavement for a moment afterwards. Some encounters don't need to be long to be memorable.

Dustin Hoffman I crossed paths with on the rue d'Antibes — smaller than you'd expect, sharper-eyed than anyone I've met, moving through the crowds with the energy of a man who knows exactly where he's going and has very little patience for anything in the way. Liv Tyler was the opposite — unhurried, luminous, the kind of beautiful that makes you stop mid-sentence and then feel slightly embarrassed about it.

And then there was Pete Doherty.

I won't go into details. What I will say is that I collected him from a hotel lobby in a state that could generously be described as operating on a different frequency to the rest of the room. He was perfectly polite throughout, in the way that some people are when they are technically present but spiritually elsewhere. I got him where he needed to be. That was the job. The Festival had a way of producing these moments and expecting you to handle them with complete discretion and a straight face. I like to think I managed both. I know I managed the straight face.

Le Petit Bouchon — and why Hollywood had to wait in line

During the Festival, my phone never stopped. Assistants, agents, hotel concierges — all calling with variations of the same request: "Can you get us a table at Le Petit Bouchon?"

And every single time, I had to explain the same thing: nobody gets a table at Le Petit Bouchon. You earn one by showing up.

Le Petit Bouchon is the kind of place that exists in every great city but is almost impossible to manufacture. Tucked into the old town, small and loud in the best way, with long wooden picnic-style tables where you sit elbow to elbow with complete strangers. There are no little tables for two in quiet corners. You sit where there's space, next to whoever's already there. Within ten minutes you're sharing the bread basket and finding out where they're from. A couple from Montreal on their honeymoon. A fisherman from the port who's been coming here for thirty years. A film producer trying very hard to look like a regular person. All equal. All eating from the same chalkboard menu that changed every day with whatever the market had that morning.

The food is the kind that reminds you why French cuisine became famous in the first place. A magret de canard with a reduction that took all day and tasted like it. A risotto aux cèpes so good you deliberately slowed down halfway through just to make it last. A cheese board that arrived uninvited and was the correct decision every time. Wine in carafes, poured generously, no ceremony whatsoever.

And the rule that made A-list Hollywood lose its mind: no reservations. For anyone.

Not for producers. Not for directors. Not for people with entire teams dedicated to making the impossible happen. You showed up, you waited if there was a queue, and you sat down when a seat appeared. A Palme d'Or winner wedged in next to a tourist from Belgium and ate the same duck. I watched it happen more than once. The owner — compact, cheerful, ran his dining room like a benevolent general — treated every single person with the same warmth and the same firm shake of the head when they mentioned they were someone important.

I still think about that duck. And I still think about the strangers I ended up talking to for three hours on a Tuesday night over a carafe of red, never to see them again. That's the other thing Le Petit Bouchon gives you. The table next to yours.

The night Elton John sang to no one in particular

There are evenings that just happen to you, without warning or reason.

It was an ordinary night — no Festival, no red carpet, no occasion whatsoever. We were at one of the waterfront restaurants, the kind with tables right at the sea's edge where you eat with the sound of small waves underneath the conversation. The night was warm and completely still, the sea flat as a mirror, the kind of evening where Cannes is just quietly, effortlessly itself.

And then someone at the table said: "Do you hear that?"

A voice. Coming from somewhere nearby — another terrace, the warm air carrying it softly over the water. And then a piano, and the voice again, clearer now, with a quality that stopped you mid-sentence before you'd even worked out why.

Someone recognised it first. Then the whisper went table to table until the whole terrace understood: Elton John was having dinner nearby and had apparently decided the evening called for a song. Not for a crowd. Not for a performance. Just because the night was beautiful and he felt like it. On a random Wednesday in Cannes.

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Forks set down. Glasses held mid-air. The whole waterfront just... listened. He sang the way people sing when they're not performing — because the moment asked for it and they happened to be the person who could answer it. Generous. Unhurried. Like a gift left on the table for whoever was there.

It lasted perhaps five minutes. The applause came softly, then fuller, rolling from terrace to terrace like a wave. And then dinner resumed, as if the most extraordinary thing in the world had just happened and everyone had agreed to treat it as completely normal.

That is Cannes. Not just during the Festival. On any given evening, at any given table, with no warning at all.

Where to eat — the actual list

Five years of living in Cannes means five years of eating in Cannes, which is not a hardship I will ask you to feel sorry about. Here is what I know:

Le Petit Bouchon — you already know this one. Go. Wait. Sit next to a stranger. Order the duck. Do not ask about reservations.

Le Speakeasy — red velvet, live soul and jazz from international artists, linguine with langoustine and beef with truffles. It starts as a restaurant and turns into something else entirely after midnight. One of those places that feels like it shouldn't exist in real life but absolutely does.

La Chunga — near the Martinez, 1950s vibe, excellent cocktails, live music, and a clientele that ranges from well-heeled celebrities to completely normal locals who've been coming here for years. The kind of bar where you intend to stay for one drink and look up two hours later.

For the beach: the clubs along the Croisette with their rows of transats and parasols and waiters who bring rosé to your sunlounger. I spent many afternoons this way. The sea is right there. The sun is right there. The rosé is cold. Some things are clichés because they are genuinely perfect.

Where to drink — the actual list

Charlys Wine Bar in the old town is a genuine local institution — built inside what was once a sheep pen, which gives it cave-shaped ceilings, purple lighting, and an atmosphere that makes absolutely no sense on paper and complete sense once you're inside. Great cocktails, good prices, DJ playing classics, the kind of place you end up at by accident and stay at on purpose. Locals and visitors equally, which is always the right sign.

Bar Fouquet's on the Croisette for when you want to feel like you're in a film. Signature cocktails, glamorous setting, the see-and-be-seen spot on the Riviera. Order something with bubbles, watch the Croisette, feel extremely pleased with yourself. You've earned it.

Morrison's Irish Pub — yes, really. There are nights when you don't want glamour and you just want somewhere loud and friendly with live music and people dancing badly and happily. Morrison's is that place. It is wildly popular, reliably fun, and has no pretensions whatsoever. It is also the site of the biggest St Patrick's Day street party in France, which is a sentence I genuinely did not expect to ever write about Cannes.

Where to dance — the actual list

Bâoli at Port Canto is the one. Open-air, enormous Balinese wooden doors, palm trees, DJ sets that go until dawn, and a crowd that genuinely knows how to have a good time. It's also a restaurant — the Asian-inspired menu is genuinely good — but most people come for what happens after dinner. Free entry, which for somewhere this good feels almost suspicious. Go on a Friday or Saturday. Dress well. The management notices.

Chrystie on rue Macé starts as a cocktail bar — genuinely excellent cocktails in copper mugs, a menu inspired by the chef's travels around the world — and transitions into a cabaret-style club later in the evening. Every night is slightly different. That's part of the point.

The Palm Club at Palm Beach for when you want something unapologetically glamorous and slightly over the top. Starts at midnight, which is either very late or exactly right depending on where you are in life. Famous people spotted here regularly. The dress code is enforced. Wear something good.

Cannes doesn't have a festival. It has ten. Your wallet has been warned.

This is the thing nobody tells you before you book. Everyone knows about the Film Festival. What they don't know is that Cannes runs at full, slightly chaotic, hotel-prices-tripled capacity for roughly nine months of the year. There is always something happening. There is always a reason the city is full. There is always a specific category of very purposeful person in a lanyard walking very fast toward the Palais des Festivals.

Here is your survival guide — or at minimum, an explanation of why your favourite restaurant suddenly requires a reservation made in February:

🎲 Festival International des Jeux — late February / early March
Board games, card games, role-playing games — the entire world of tabletop gaming descends on the Croisette for a long weekend. It is completely unexpected in this setting and somehow absolutely delightful. Grown adults in Cannes, deeply focused on Catan. I respect it entirely. 2026: 27 February – 1 March.

🏢 MIPIM — March
The world's largest real estate trade show. Thousands of property developers, investors and urban planners in very good suits arrive and discuss square metres with great intensity. The city becomes temporarily very wealthy and very sober. Two completely different energies from the Film Festival. The restaurants are full. The conversations are different. 2026: 9–13 March.

📺 Canneseries — April
The international series festival — think Cannes Film Festival but for Netflix, HBO and the creators of what you'll be watching next winter. Far less known than the Film Festival, far more accessible, and increasingly the place where interesting things happen first. 2026: 23–28 April.

🎬 Festival de Cannes — May ⭐ THE one
Eleven days. The entire world. The Palme d'Or. Champagne at private events. Karl Lagerfeld at seven in the morning. Pete Doherty in various states. Elton John singing on a Tuesday for no particular reason. You know the one. 2026: 12–23 May. Book everything — hotels, restaurants, transport — months in advance. The city is full, magnificent, completely mad, and absolutely worth it.

🦁 Cannes Lions — June
The international festival of creativity — advertising, marketing, the most creative and frankly most enthusiastic professionals in the industry all converge on the Croisette. The work is fascinating. The parties are legendary. The city gets a second wind just when you thought it was finally catching its breath. 2026: 22–26 June.

The practical upshot of all this: if you're planning to rent on the Côte d'Azur and you want to spend time in Cannes, check the calendar first. The city during a festival is electric and extraordinary. The city between festivals is quieter, more local, and in some ways even better. Both are worth experiencing. Neither will disappoint.

The Cannes that most visitors miss is Le Suquet — the old town, climbing the hill behind the port, all steep cobbled lanes and ochre-washed houses and restaurants that have been feeding locals for decades without any interest in appealing to anyone else.

This is where I went when I wanted to eat well without theatre. At night, with the lights of the port reflected in the water below and the smell of something extraordinary drifting from every open kitchen window — that's the Cannes I carry with me. Not the red carpet. Not the limousines. This.

Park at the port and walk up. The streets are steep. It is worth every step, and I say that as someone who considers walking from the car to the restaurant an acceptable distance and anything further a lifestyle choice I haven't made.

Why I eventually left — and why I keep going back

After five years the pull of the arrière-pays became too strong. The villages, the quiet, the light in the hills that is different from the light on the coast in ways I still can't fully explain. We moved inland. The commute back to Cannes was long enough to make you appreciate the city more, which is perhaps the ideal relationship to have with it.

I still go back. I always will.

If you rent on the Côte d'Azur and you don't spend at least one evening in Le Suquet, one morning on the Croisette before the crowds arrive, one long lazy afternoon on a transat with the sea in front of you, and one very good night at Bâoli — you haven't done it properly.

I can help with that.