//TRAVELAbove the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, in the garden of a century-old house, lies a place that shifts its tone from lunch to night. No shop window, no bouncer with a guest list. A closer look at the Ermitage and its TIGrr-and why the best spots don’t need to shout.
Some places in Saint-Tropez are already familiar before you arrive, their names printed on every other tote bag. Then there’s the Ermitage. Tucked above the bustle, at the foot of the citadel, hidden behind a tangle of ancient pines and holm oaks, the house doesn’t flaunt itself-it conceals. You have to seek it out. Maybe that’s half the reason it works.
The estate is over a hundred years old, and it wears its age with ease. The garden holds everything at once: hotel rooms, a restaurant, a cocktail bar, a club, even a pétanque court and terraces overlooking what’s known here as the Tropezian savanna. At its heart sits Le TIGrr-a place that defies a single description.
The TIGrr’s trick is refusing to be just one thing. By day, it’s a restaurant: Asian cuisine-Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian-served on shared plates. You sit in the salon or on the terrace, order sushi, dim sum, spring rolls, and time slows down.
Then, as the sun dips lower, the mood shifts. The restaurant becomes a bar with a small dance floor, a DJ spins records, some nights feature live music, others karaoke with a chrome microphone. Same terrace, same view, different rhythm. Few places here pull off this transition: those that work as restaurants by day rarely convince as clubs by night, and vice versa. The TIGrr demands both – and somehow keeps its soul intact.
Don’t pretend this is some secret only you’ve uncovered. The house appears in all the right Riviera guidebooks; it’s well-known enough. But known isn’t the same as loud. In its own words, it positions itself as one of the coast’s more discreet addresses, far from the venues that sell themselves from the street.
Some restaurants are all about the food. Others are all about the view. Le TIGrr leans firmly into the second category – and makes no secret of it. From the foot of the Citadel, the panorama unfolds over the rooftops of the village, the harbor, and out across the bay. Lush vegetation-century-old pines, holm oaks, and bamboo-frames the scene without obscuring it.
That’s the difference from the beach clubs down by the water, where the sea is the view but the surroundings are a sea of sun loungers and speaker walls. Here, a few meters above the hustle, you look down on the action instead of being part of it. If you’ve ever been to Saint-Tropez and wondered where the people who don’t need to be seen actually go, this is your answer.
If you want to dive deeper before your trip: we’ve broken down Saint-Tropez as a whole in our //Travel section-from the quiet hours before noon to the question of what’s still real about the myth today. Le TIGrr is one piece of that mosaic, not the whole picture.
Famous isn’t the same as loud. The best spots don’t sell themselves from the street. You have to want them.– On the logic of the discreet address
The cuisine is Asian-but not in the sense of a label. It’s a journey: Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, with the classics you know and a few surprises you wouldn’t expect on the Côte d’Azur. Sushi and dim sum share the menu with spring rolls. What stands out are the dishes where the kitchen dares to blend the Mediterranean with Southeast Asia: a Thai bouillabaisse, a sea bream cooked in banana leaf.
Proceed with caution when it comes to promises: the restaurant’s official menu isn’t currently available online, and dishes change with the seasons. If you have a specific recommendation in mind, it’s best to ask on-site or when making your reservation. What remains consistent across sources is the approach: upscale Asian cuisine, designed for sharing, without stiffness. And cocktails-one in particular, a *Perroquet*, gets mentioned again and again.
The second half of the day is what Le TIGrr is really known for. By sunset at the latest, the place transforms into a meeting spot with its own bar, a small dance floor, and a DJ. It’s not a megaclub with lines out the door-more the intimate version: you stay because you’re already there, because the evening was good, the wine was right, and the light was perfect. On Thursdays, they say, there’s karaoke under the open sky.
That’s the kind of transition an evening needs to stick in your memory: not a hard cut between dinner and dancing, but one flowing seamlessly into the other. At some point, you stand up without really leaving the table. That’s the hard part to pull off-and one of the reasons this place is more than the sum of its parts.
There’s a simple reason why a place like this endures while the loudest addresses vanish as quickly as they appear. It’s all about attitude. Le TIGrr doesn’t try to impress you before you’ve even sat down. It lets the garden, the pines, and the view do the talking-then follows up with the kitchen, the cocktails, and the music as darkness falls.
This isn’t everyone’s Saint-Tropez. Those who come for the spectacle-the yachts, the magnum bottles on the beach-won’t miss a thing up here, and that’s precisely why they won’t make the climb. For everyone else, this is the better half of the place: the part that doesn’t need to prove it belongs because it’s always been here.
At the end of an evening at Ermitage, you don’t leave because they’re closing. You leave because you’ve had enough-in the best possible way. The bay’s lights still glow below, the music has found that perfect moment where it doesn’t need to get any louder. It’s that rare kind of place where, even as you’re walking out, you’re already wondering when you’ll return. And that’s more than most addresses on this coast can claim.
Both are connected. Le TIGrr is the restaurant, bar, and club in the garden of Hôtel Ermitage in Saint-Tropez. The hotel itself offers rooms; Le TIGrr is the culinary and evening experience of the estate.
Asian, with Thai, Vietnamese, and Indonesian influences: sushi, dim sum, spring rolls, plus crossover dishes like a Thai bouillabaisse or sea bream in banana leaf. The exact menu changes with the season.
The property sits at the foot of the citadel, slightly above the village. From the terrace, you look out over the rooftops, the harbor, and the Bay of Saint-Tropez, framed by ancient pines and holm oaks.
It’s the transition between the two. A restaurant at lunchtime and early evening, later a bar with a small dance floor and DJ. Some evenings feature live concerts, Thursdays karaoke. An intimate setting, not a megaclub.
Places with character, not mass tourism. Quiet retreats, great addresses, traveling with style. Stay in //TRAVEL.
