Moorea

The path beneath the pines, the pale curtains barely stirring, the scent of wood warmed by the sun mingling with that of fish on the embers: something within unwinds before you even sit down. Christophe Coutal, an eighth-generation Tropézien, carries on the spirit of a beach his father already ran. At the table, Jérôme Larmat and Yoann Toulouse craft a cuisine where the Mediterranean and Asia answer one another with finesse: barely seared wild fish, delicate carpaccios, fresh herbs and citrus, pale Provence rosés.

There are places where one is seen, and others where one finds oneself again. Moorea is one of the latter. In the evening, when the sky above Ramatuelle turns pink, one is reluctant to leave — which is why one always returns.