The South of France / About
We are an independent journal of the Mediterranean — written by people who live here, for those who travel slowly.
The South of France has been described to death. It has sold a million postcards, lent its light to a thousand brands, and become a shorthand for a holiday rather than a place. We started this journal to write about it the way you would describe it to a friend over dinner — honestly, with the names of the people who make it worth the journey.
We publish four issues a year, in print and online, in English and in French. Each one gathers a handful of long reports, a season’s worth of tables and stays, and an address book we keep updating long after the issue closes. We are not a listings site. We do not try to cover everything. We go to the places ourselves, and we write only about the ones we would go back to.
Our editors live between Marseille, Aix and the Var. Some were born here; others arrived and never left. What we share is a conviction that the Midi rewards patience — that the best of it is found at the speed of a back road, a long lunch, and an afternoon that goes nowhere in particular.
This is, in the end, a simple promise: to send you only to places we love, and to tell you the truth about them. We go to each one ourselves, and we write down what we saw.
No algorithm picks these pages. Every address is chosen by an editor who has been there — for the table, the welcome, the way it holds up off-season.
Nothing in these pages is written from a press kit. If we describe the light on a terrace at six, it is because we were sitting there at six.
We favour the places that have earned their permanence — the family table, the perched village, the estate that has farmed the same hill for forty years.
Born in Aix, a former wine writer. Covers the Luberon, the Alpilles and everything that grows between them.
Cooked professionally for a decade before he started writing about it. Chases the Midi’s kitchens, from two stars to the harbour shack.
Photographer and diver, based in the Var. Knows every cove from Cassis to the Esterel, and which ones to keep quiet.
A handful of people who live a corner of the South well write for us now and then — once, about the thing they know. They are not on staff; they are friends of the desk.
A friend of the desk who lives in Cannes and knows the Riviera from the inside. She points us toward the corners of the coast we would otherwise miss, and writes for us now and then on what she knows first-hand.
Has lived in Mougins for many years, where she runs the neighbourhood goldsmith Maison Or et Bijoux Mougins. Drawn to precious metals for their history and their lasting worth, she writes for us on craft, patience and the unhurried southern life she chose for her family.
Nous y allons nous-mêmes, et nous écrivons ce que nous avons vu.