Best hotels in St Tropez and the Gulf

Rosé-pink walls, umbrella pines and a private beach on the Plage de la Bouillabaisse, a ten-minute stroll from the old port. Small, calm and pointedly unfussy, this is the St-Tropez the magazines tend to skip: no DJ, no velvet rope, no one checking your labels. Arnaud Donckele runs the kitchen at La Vague d'Or, holds three Michelin stars and is a saucier before he's anything else (you'll understand at dinner). The original Capron ceramics survived the LVMH makeover, which tells you the tone. The village is ten minutes on foot. The pontoon is thirty seconds. We know which we'd choose.