By Katherine Harvey
This summer seems to be a bit upside down weather-wise here. The heat that usually arrives mid-July, just in time for Bastille Day and stays until about August 15 when it breaks and you count the wonderful days that you have left to enjoy all that summer on the French Riviera has to offer came early but left as mysteriously as it arrived.
The market is as lively as ever and is now open on Monday from June through August with only a few stands such as the butcher keeping the traditional schedule. Even La Sirene, with King Crab legs, crab claws as big as your fist and spiny lobsters plus oysters and just about anything else you might want from the sea is open which is unusual since fishermen do not fish on Sunday. Nico, who used to be the assistant at La Sirene opened his own place across the market a few years ago and has been a roaring success especially at lunch time when he serves just about anything you can imagine: shrimp, oysters, carpaccio and sea urchin to name a few, all served with a cold glass of chardonnay. Michel and his crew hold court at the far end the market with the best prices and an amazing selection of produce: passion fruit, fraise des bois, red currents and the sweetest melon that taste like nectar. His selection of stone fruits are irresistible and shoppers come away with peaches, nectarines and apricots for a fruit selection to rival any. Michel’s vegetables are a display of color with various peppers and tomatoes taking pride of place. One of the items Michel sells is pourprier, purslane in English, a succulent plant which we have flowering on our terraces; I would not suggest eating ours as they are saturated with anti-aphid spray and it would make me feel that infanticide was being committing. Marielle still has the most beautiful produce stand and now that she has been moved to the edge of the market leaving the center open her produce is more easily accessible to the delight of her regular and new customers.
Simone’s daughter further down the market in the center row is the princess of heirloom tomatoes with her mother the queen. Simone always dresses like she is ready to go clubbing in Cannes while her daughter covers herself from head to toe and only lets her hands and face be seen no matter the weather. Their produce is home grown and as beautiful as it is delicious begging you to have tomato mozzarella for lunch with just a splash of olive oil, a twist of black pepper and a pinch of fleur de sel and two or three fresh basil leaves on top. Don’t forget the glass of rosé.
The Antibes outlet of La Tarte Tropezienne has set an August 1 opening deadline and they have made it under the wire. La Tarte Tropezienne was invented in 1955 by Alexandre Micka, a Polish emigre in Saint Tropez who was hired to cater meals for the cast and crew for the film Et Dieu Crea la Femme (And God created Woman) starring Brigette Bardot and directed by her then husband Roger Vadim who went on to marry Jane Fonda and a few others before he decided to call it a day and just have partners. Brigitte Bardot suggested Micka call his pastry La Tarte Tropezienne and the rest is history. The original confection is now available in more than 25 French towns at La Tarte Tropezienne franchises and although the name is a registered trademark many pastry shops and bakeries have it in their cases but none match the original whose recipe for the sugar sprinkled cream filled brioche is kept in a safe and known only to three people. Management of the company has cleverly taken advantage of the fact that their star product is so widely imitated that their motto which appears on all their print material translates as ”often imitated, never equalled”, a brilliant example of making lemonade out of lemons.
Eyeglass shops have taken over Antibes. When last counted there were 10 but the other day a friend told me about another one, an “organic” eyeglass shop where the frames are made from recycled material. This now makes it 11 that I know of and that does not include Juan les Pins where surly there are more. Krys and Alain Afflelou can probably be compared to Warby Parker and have hundreds of boutiques in towns all over France but Afflelou sets itself apart by also being hearing specialists making it the perfect choice for for one stop shopping. My favorite in Antibes, however, is Optician Createur with eight boutiques sprinkled along the Cote d’Azur which carries Anne & Valentin, Sabine B.. and Jean Philippe Joly among others. I make it a point to not go past the place when out and about the frames are so very tempting.
Ice cream also, though seasonal, is an important part of life here as one would imagine. Until last week there were seven ice cream shops in the old town including Haagen- Dazs and Amorino which at one time had a shop on North State Street in Chicago perhaps at Chestnut. A new ice cream shop has opened up next to the future home of the municipal police and renovated public toilets (the posted work authorization is dated October 2023 to give you an idea of how quickly some things get done here). The new ice cream shop is offering free ice cream the day of opening to those who register on the website; the owner is a former tech guru who decided to go with his childhood dream of having the focus of his life be ice cream and he could not be happier; we plan on sampling his wares after lunch. Haagen-Dazs and Amorino are only steps apart but the Gelaterio del Porto is so popular and the ice cream and sorbets so extraordinary no one has dared to open another ice cream shop within sight of it. Open only in the afternoon (from noon to midnight in the summer and 10:00 otherwise, closed in winter) the crew is young and dynamic having taken over from the previous owner who had to sell due to tax evasion charges. The team purchases fruit for the sorbets three times a week in the Nice market to assure fresh ingredients and the product and always long line reflect the care they take. The sign on the stand and cups depicts three characters; see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil. I leave you to make what you will of that.
The old post office, a protected and fine example of brutalist architecture, is set to become a four star hotel one of these days with a rooftop swimming pool. So far the only visible work that has been done is the removal of anything that would identify the building as a post office with not even a sign directing one to the new post office which is hidden around the corner in the new boutique/apartment complex which has not been a great success. The decision was made to have smaller boutiques rather than a department store such as Au Printemps or Les Galleries Lafayette which was probably a bad idea. The boutiques are struggling and the wide pedestrian walkway between rows of shops cannot have any planting or certain outdoor displays which are an important draw for shoppers here. The reasoning for this is that emergency vehicles must have access when necessary. The lack of greenery and enticing outdoor displays leaves the hot, sun drenched walkway uninviting to shoppers who stay away in droves. New strategy to entice shoppers is fluttering foil strips stretched above the walkway that sparkle and shade the street; let us hope it works. The rue de la Republique is a busy shopping street with bustling cafes mere steps from the new build yet the new shops are deserted even though the two new restaurants and three cafes are busy at lunch and dinner. A small outpost of Monoprix, which has been compared to Target for its reasonable prices and stylish merchandise, that featured only food and household products in the manner of a large convenience store closed after two years while Carrefour recently opened its third shop (again, only food and household products) not far away to great success. The underground parking was flooded for a few years and is only now usable. The new movie theatre with eight screens is not the success it was hoped to be because of high ticket prices; movie goers frequent the old movie theatre perhaps out of habit and the rooftop restaurant with the most amazing view of the port, the Quai of the Billionaires and the open sea beyond is still looking for an operator.
As for Igloo, it is only Switzerland for him. His humans, who you might remember replaced him with a dog when he made the big move where he found love, have turned their house into an AIRBNB as have many who live around us. Such is life.
