Sunday brunch at La Petite Maison runs from noon until five, comes with a band, and is the only thing in Cannes we will give up a whole day for. Here is what actually happens, and what it costs.
Where it is, which matters
Not in the middle of town. La Petite Maison sits out at Palm Beach on Place Franklin Roosevelt, right at the far point of the Croisette where the headland turns. From the centre it is about twelve minutes by car, or a long and rather good walk along the sea if you have the morning. The view runs from Cap d’Antibes across to the Lérins islands, and it is the reason to ask for a table outside.
The name comes from Nice. Nicole Rubi’s original is still on Rue Saint-François de Paule in the old town, and it is a different, smaller, more argumentative thing. The Cannes house is run with her daughter Anne-Laure and is the glossier of the two.
What you actually get
It is a buffet and a kitchen working at the same time, which is the part people do not expect. The cold things — starters, salads, the pastries, the desserts — you go and get. The hot things are cooked to order and brought out: eggs Benedict, omelettes, avocado and egg on toast, whatever is on that week. The house classics are there too, the pissaladière and the truffle scrambled eggs, so it is not brunch food pretending to be dinner.
Juices are pressed, the coffee keeps coming, and there is a live band and a DJ from the early afternoon. By three the room has stopped being a restaurant and become something else. Nobody minds.
What it costs
Around a hundred and twenty euros a head for the full version, food and drink included, with wine and champagne poured freely through the afternoon. There is usually a cheaper option with a single glass of champagne rather than free flow. Prices move, so check when you book.
Whether that is good value depends entirely on how you do it. Arrive at noon, stay until four, drink the wine, and it is fair. Arrive at half past two, eat one plate and leave, and it is not. This is not a meal to fit around something else.
A friend of ours once flew down from London for it and flew back the same evening. We thought he was joking until he sent the boarding passes. He has done it twice since.
Six things worth knowing
- Book, and book early. Sunday is the one service everyone wants, and festival and congress weeks go days ahead.
- Ask for outside when you reserve, and again when you arrive. The terrace is the point.
- Noon, not two. The full five hours is the whole value of the thing.
- It gets loud. Once the band starts this is not a conversation you will finish. Go for the afternoon, not for the catch-up.
- Watch the extras. Coffees and anything ordered outside the free-flow list go on the bill separately and are priced like the Croisette, because they are the Croisette.
- The valet. There is no posted price. Agree what you are paying before you hand the keys over, or park yourself along the Croisette and walk the last stretch.
Who it is for
It is the right thing for a birthday, for the last day of a stay, or for the kind of Sunday where nobody has anywhere to be. It is the wrong thing if you want a quiet lunch, if you are travelling with small children, or if you are hoping to see anything else that day. You will not.
We send guests there for one Sunday of a week, never two. It is a set piece, and set pieces work once.
And if it is full
It often is. Two streets inland from the Croisette there are a dozen rooms doing a proper Sunday lunch for a third of the money, and the where to eat in Cannes page has them. The rooftops and hotel bars are the other way to spend a Sunday afternoon on this coast, and several of those take walk-ins.