Cooking in Monaco means cooking upstairs
Monaco is vertical, and that changes everything about the job. Most of what we cook in is an apartment, not a villa: Monte-Carlo, Larvotto along the beach, La Condamine above the port, Fontvieille, and the terraces climbing towards the Jardin Exotique. We also work the coast either side, at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Cap d Ail, Eze and Beaulieu, where the houses get bigger and the drive is short.
Two practical things follow. Kitchens are smaller than the address suggests, so a chef plans a menu that can be finished in the space that actually exists. And parking and service access need arranging in advance, because arriving with the shopping for twelve people and nowhere to stop costs an hour nobody has. Tell us the building and we will sort it before the day.
What this stretch of coast gives us
The cooking here is Ligurian as much as French, and better for it. The market at La Condamine is small and serious. Menton lemons, grown a few kilometres along the coast, are unlike any other lemon and worth building a dish around. Socca, olive oil from the hills behind, the vegetables of the Nicoise tradition.
Barbagiuan, the stuffed fritter that is Monaco s own dish, almost never appears on a visitor s table, and it should. And the fish landed along this coast responds to being left alone: grilled, with oil and a lemon that came from up the road.
The calendar
Monaco works all year, but the population changes. The last week of May, when the principality fills for the Grand Prix, is the single hardest period to arrange anything at short notice, and July and August are the summer peak. The weeks around Christmas and New Year are busy in a quieter, more residential way.
In the shoulder months the coast is at its best and a chef can usually be arranged within days.
Where the shopping actually comes from
Monaco is two square kilometres, and it does not grow or land very much of what gets eaten in it. The Marche de la Condamine covers the daily things well, but for a menu with any ambition a chef here shops across a border: the Friday market at Ventimiglia for Italian produce, Nice for fish, and the hill villages behind Menton for the rest. That is normal practice, not a shortcut.
It also means the day has a shape imposed on it. Crossing into Italy and back before lunch is an hour each way in season, so the shopping happens early and once. If you want something particular on the table, say it the day before rather than at midday, and it will be there.
