Hôtel Martinez

The Croisette Address That Defines a Category

Stand at the eastern end of the Boulevard de la Croisette on a May evening during the Film Festival, and the neon rooftop sign of Hôtel Martinez functions less as a hotel identifier than as a civic landmark. The building's Art Deco silhouette has been part of Cannes' working skyline since the 1930s, and its position at 73 Boulevard de la Croisette places it at what most visitors would agree is the commercial and ceremonial spine of the French Riviera's most concentrated strip of luxury. That address is not incidental to the experience; it is the experience. The hotel sits directly across from its own private beach, La Plage du Martinez, meaning that the distance from your room to salt water is measured in metres rather than minutes.

In the Riviera grand-hotel category, proximity to the sea and the Croisette promenade is the primary asset that separates the top tier from the rest. The Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel occupies a comparable stretch of the boulevard, while smaller properties like the Five Seas Hotel and Hôtel Belle Plage offer more intimate alternatives without the same scale of facilities. The Martinez, with 410 rooms, holds a different position: it is large enough to support a full complement of restaurants, bar, spa, and private beach infrastructure.

Interiors That Negotiate Between Eras

The architectural tension at the Martinez is the one that all grand Riviera hotels must manage: how do you honour a building from the 1930s without making it feel like a museum? The answer here leans toward the nautical. Designer Pierre-Yves Rochon worked with the palette that the Mediterranean itself supplies: blue, white, and yellow, carried through the 410 rooms in white lacquer furniture, white terrazzo floors, and door handles made by master glassmakers from the Île de Bréhat. Bathrooms use white marble and mosaic tilework. The effect is fresh rather than period-preserved, though the public spaces retain the high ceilings and ornate chandeliers that anchor the building's original register.

Room categories here range from standard sea-view rooms to the Penthouse, which at more than 12,100 square feet is among the larger hotel suites available anywhere in Europe. The Penthouse combines two separate suites and includes bathtubs oriented toward the sea, a private cinema room, and wellness areas that can be configured as a yoga space, massage room, or hair salon depending on guest preference. Garden suites come with expansive private terraces. Many standard rooms carry sea views, and the hotel's position means that even hill-facing rooms overlook Cannes' rolling backdrop rather than an urban void.

Four Food and Drink Formats, One Kitchen Direction

The Martinez concentrates a significant amount of its current identity in its food and beverage programme, all of which operates under the direction of Chef Jean Imbert, whose twin references are gastronomy and cinema. That combination suits a hotel whose highest-profile annual moment is the Film Festival, when the property operates as a working venue for industry events as much as a place of accommodation.

La Palme d'Or, which holds one Michelin star, reopened in May 2024 during the Film Festival in a redesigned space that references a vintage boat: lacquered wood, a cinematic interior, and a seafood-forward menu drawing from Mediterranean produce. The restaurant is the most formal of the four outlets and carries the weight of the hotel's dining credentials. It is also the most explicitly Riviera-specific in terms of its reference points, pairing sun-driven produce with the kind of theatrical presentation that the Film Festival context rewards.

La Plage du Martinez, the beach club on the sand directly across the Croisette, runs a more casual Riviera format: fresh-pressed juices, cocktails, local fish, and Mediterranean dishes served in director's chairs facing the water. The collaboration with Imbert brings the same kitchen direction down to a beach-casual register without losing coherence across the property. Adjacent to the restaurant, the private beach itself provides sun beds on both the sand and a pontoon, which extends the footprint of the hotel's coastal offer into the water.

Le Sud handles the hotel's all-day dining function: indoor and outdoor seating with garden access, a Mediterranean-leaning menu, and a reference to the energy of the Roaring Twenties that echoes the hotel's own period. The breakfast service here draws particular mention in inspector notes as among the stronger hotel breakfast offers in Cannes.

The Martinez Bar sits on the Croisette side of the building and operates in a 1930s speakeasy register: red and gold interiors, plush seating, a vinyl bar, and live DJ sets on weekends and through summer. It functions both as a hotel bar for guests and as a destination in its own right for evening gatherings on the Croisette.

Wellness at Scale

The spa operates under Carita, one of the heritage French beauty and skincare names, and is situated within the hotel's interior garden, called L'Oasis. The facilities include seven treatment rooms, an outdoor pool, a glass-fronted fitness area equipped by TechnoGym, and a bar oriented toward detoxifying drinks. The garden setting places the wellness zone inside a green interior courtyard, which creates an acoustic and visual separation from the boulevard outside without requiring guests to leave the building. Compared with spa formats at villa-scale Riviera properties like La Réserve Ramatuelle, the Martinez spa operates as a full-service urban facility rather than a retreat-focused programme, which suits the hotel's profile as a place that balances events, gastronomy, and relaxation simultaneously.

Awards and Peer Context

La Liste Leading Hotels awarded the Martinez 90.5 points in its 2026 edition. Gault & Millau added an Exceptional Hotel designation in 2025. These awards place it within the same conversation as other historic hotel addresses across France: the Domaine Les Crayères in Reims, Baumanière Les Baux-de-Provence, or Cheval Blanc Paris, each carrying landmark status in their respective geographies. On the Riviera specifically, the Martinez competes directly with the Carlton for the full-scale Croisette grand hotel position, while properties like Hotel Du Cap-Eden-Roc in Cap d'Antibes, The Maybourne Riviera, and Château de la Chèvre d'Or in Èze operate in adjacent geographies with different physical formats.

For travellers comparing the Martinez against design-forward alternatives, the Mondrian Cannes offers a contemporary counterpoint within the city, and further afield, properties like Airelles Saint-Tropez, Casadelmar in Porto-Vecchio, La Bastide de Gordes, and Villa La Coste represent the Provence and Mediterranean villa-hotel alternative to the grand boulevard format. Those seeking comparable grand-hotel energy in other European cities might reference Aman Venice, Aman New York, or The Fifth Avenue Hotel as points of reference in different geographies. Within France's alpine and wine-country tier, Cheval Blanc Courchevel, Four Seasons Megève, Les Sources de Caudalie, Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa, Castelbrac in Dinard, and Hôtel & Spa du Castellet each represent what the French luxury hotel model looks like when removed from the coast.

Planning Your Stay

The hotel is located at 73 Boulevard de la Croisette, within walking distance of the Palais des Festivals.