Somewhere between the first negroni and the four o’clock DJ set, the beach club quietly became the whole reason people book the trip. It is where the summer actually happens now, the place you plan the outfit around, the reservation you make before the flight. We went looking for the ones worth planning a whole holiday around, from the wooden canteen in Saint-Tropez that started all of this back in 1955 to the glass-and-marble cliff clubs that opened this year. We found 23 of them, sorted here by mood. Here is where each one takes you.
Photo: Colton Jones, Courtesy of Natasha Oakley & Theo Chambers
The Ones That Started It All
It began in 1955 as a canteen feeding the cast and crew of Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman, and the de Colmont family has run Le Club 55 ever since. There is no infinity pool and no resident DJ, which is exactly the point. You come for the raffia, the grilled fish, the rosé, and the quiet understanding that this is the room the whole Riviera has been copying for seventy years.
Photo: Natalia Ledina, Marc de Delley
This is the one where the yachts anchor in a row offshore and their passengers come in by tender for lunch. Nammos turned Psarou Beach into the most expensive stretch of sand in the Aegean, and the magpie glamour of it, the magnums, the sunglasses, the professional people-watching, is fully the show. See it once, then decide for yourself whether it lives up to the legend.
Photo: Nikos Kokolakis, Courtesy of Nammos World
Down a cliffside path or, far better, arriving by boat, you reach a cluster of blue-and-white sunbeds set directly against the Faraglioni rocks. La Fontelina has faced this view since 1949, and the ritual has barely moved: a swim straight off the rocks, a plate of just-caught fish, and a jug of the house sangria made with white wine and Capri peaches. Reservations happen by phone only, which tells you everything about the kind of place it is.
Photo: Courtesy of Natasha Oakley & Theo Chambers
Fresh Off the Ribbon
Tucked into the tiny emerald cove of Paraggi, between Portofino and Santa Margherita, Bagni Fiore has been a fixture of the Ligurian dolce vita since 1927. For the 2026 season the Parisian studio Festen reimagined the whole thing, pulling colours and moods from the coast’s own history so it reads as a love letter to old Riviera summers rather than a renovation. The menu stays honest and Italian, anchovies and Santa Margherita prawns and pasta that tastes of the sea a few metres away.
Photo: Courtesy of Bagni Fiore
When the Fashion Houses Move In
No brand loves summer quite the way Dolce & Gabbana does, and Casa Amor is the house rendered in three dimensions on the sand at Saint-Tropez. Think maximalism turned all the way up, Sicilian ceramics, lemons, leopard, and a Mediterranean sensuality that never once whispers. You are not really at a beach club here. You are inside a Dolce campaign, and dressed for the part.
Photo: Courtesy of Casa Amor
Jacquemus took its stripes to the Turkish Riviera and wrapped them around Paradise Bay at the Mandarin Oriental, Bodrum. The Simon Porte Jacquemus universe, all sun-bleached pastels, oversized hats, and Provencal wit, translates shockingly well to the Aegean. The whole shoreline becomes a postcard the brand designed, and you get to spend the day living inside it.
Photo: Courtesy of Inside Lifestyle
For summer 2026 Burberry took over the Hôtel Belles Rives on the Cap d’Antibes, the Art Deco villa where F. Scott Fitzgerald once summered and began writing Tender Is the Night. The house redrew its famous check in the hotel’s own shade of blue and ran it across the loungers, umbrellas, private jetty, and even the original 1920s lift, with branded ice creams on the terrace and the Fitzgerald Bar for sundowners. There is Burberry check swimwear to shop and, in a nod to the bay where waterskiing is said to have first reached Europe, a set of actual Burberry waterskis. It is the most literary beach day on this list, and the most British.
Photo: Courtesy of Burberry
This one arrives with a love story built in. Gucci took over La Rose des Vents on Monaco’s Larvotto beach to mark sixty years of its Flora print, the swirl of blooms that Rodolfo Gucci commissioned in 1966 as a gift for Princess Grace of Monaco, Grace Kelly herself. The motif now covers the loungers and umbrellas from May through October, with a red capsule of ready-to-wear you can shop nowhere else but the Monte-Carlo boutique. It loops together the Riviera, royalty, and a house that knows exactly how to turn its own heritage into atmosphere, which makes it the most quietly romantic takeover of the season.
Photo: Courtesy of Burberry
Perched on the Edge
A little further along the same cliffs, Ulu Cliffhouse plays it cooler, a sixty-metre drop to the surf break below and a twenty-five-metre infinity pool that seems to spill straight into the sea. The look is midcentury Palm Springs by way of Bali, pale-yellow parasols and easy grey loungers. Come for the Saturday pool party, or just for the moment the sun drops behind the surfers.
Photo: Courtesy of Ulu Cliffhouse
Locals call Maçakizi the Scorpios of Turkey, and the comparison holds: a hillside above Türkbükü bay, faultless Aegean cooking, and a crowd that mixes the international set with the artists and writers who actually live the Bodrum summer. Reservations for peak weeks vanish within hours of opening. It is quieter money than Mykonos, and plenty of people prefer it that way.
Photo: Courtesy of Maçakizi
Down a pine-scented path east of Ibiza Town, marked only by a small sign shaped like an ammonite, Amante hides in the cliffs above the wild cove of Sol d’en Serra. Three terraces step down toward the water, every table facing the sea with Formentera on the horizon, and a stone staircase leads to a private beach that feels borrowed from a film. Mornings bring yoga and breakfast, evenings bring dinner under the moon. For sheer romance, nowhere else on this list comes close.
Photo: Courtesy of Amante
One of the first beach clubs Mallorca ever had, Gran Folies turned twenty-five in 2025 and still owns its rocky perch above Cala Llamp, near Port d’Andratx on the island’s quieter southwest coast. The terraces are cut straight into the cliff, so the Mediterranean sits literally at your feet, with a saltwater pool, Bali beds, and morning yoga stacked across the levels down to the water. The kitchen runs Mediterranean with a Peruvian and Thai streak, and a water taxi will collect you from your boat when the winding cliff road feels like too much effort.
Photo: Courtesy of Gran Folies
Barefoot, Boho, and a Little Wild
The backstory alone earns its place: this Tulum mansion once belonged to Pablo Escobar, sat abandoned for a decade, and was reborn when the art dealer Lio Malca filled it with his own collection. A Keith Haring bar, an underground pool, a hanging couch draped like a wedding dress, and Basquiat-inspired restaurant names now stand where the cartel history used to be. The beach itself is pure Tulum, hammocks and teepees and palm shade, with a private art gallery attached.
Photo: Courtesy of Casa Malca
Gitano is what happens when you hang a disco ball in the jungle and build a mezcal bar underneath it. Palms strung with warm light, a menu that treats agave as a food group, and a night that slides from a long dinner into barefoot dancing with the sand still warm. It bottled the Tulum fantasy so well that it has since exported the whole concept to Dubai and beyond.
Photo: Courtesy of Gitano
When Michel Reybier and Philippe Starck decided Saint-Tropez needed a calmer sort of beach club, they built La Réserve à la Plage into the sand at Pampelonne, all reed screens, straw huts, and barefoot glamour rather than bottle-service noise. Seventy-five sun beds face the Mediterranean, the wood-fired kitchen sends out Provenсal sharing plates and rosé, and a little boutique handles the straw hats and pareos you forgot to pack. By evening it tips gently into champagne and music, which is about as loud as this place ever gets.
Photo: Courtesy of Réserve à la Plage
Alemagou is the boho answer to the Mykonos glamour machine, a wood-and-stone beach club on windswept Ftelia where kitesurfers share the bay and nobody checks your shoes. K-Studio built it from Cycladic bones, gourd lamps and natural shade, and the day drifts from a long Greek-Spanish lunch into sunset sets from the likes of Tale of Us and Hernán Cattáneo. The wind sets the mood, the rosé arrives in coconuts, and the crowd treats the whole thing as a ritual rather than a scene.
Photo: Courtesy of Alemagou
You recognise Potato Head before you understand it: a vast amphitheatre facade built from thousands of salvaged antique window shutters, an architectural landmark on the Seminyak sand. Behind it sits a genuine sustainability pioneer, a certified B Corp that has landed on the World’s 50 Best Hotels list three years running. Sunset over the infinity pool here is a Bali rite of passage, and the design gives you something to think about between cocktails.
Photo: Jack Johns, Adrian Morris
Getting to Sundays is half the pleasure: you ride a funicular down the Uluwatu cliff to a private white-sand beach most people never find. Down there it is all bean bags, snorkelling gear, and a bonfire lit as the sky turns, one of the few Bali clubs built for lingering rather than dancing. Bring the people you actually want to talk to.
Turn the Music Up
FINNS calls itself the best beach club in the world and, annoyingly, keeps producing the receipts to back it up: three pools, eleven bars, seven kitchens, and DJs running from breakfast to well past dark. It is enormous, it is loud, and it somehow stays genuine value in a category built on markups. Come for a big, unserious day with a large group, and leave a little hoarse.
Photo: Courtesy of FINNS
On the pebbly cove of Cala Jondal, Blue Marlin is the Ibiza club that has hosted everyone, Beyoncé included, and still sets the template for the whole island. A private jetty delivers the superyacht crowd straight to lunch, the seafood is genuinely excellent, and as the sun drops the restaurant becomes a full dance floor with names like Pete Tong on the decks. Day and night share the same room here, and the switch between them is the best part.
Photo: Meg Kingman, Courtesy of Blue Marlin
The original Nikki Beach still throws the party that launched a global brand, on the white sand of Saint-Jean in St Barts. All-white everything, magnums of champagne, a Sunday brunch that has been jet-set shorthand for decades, and a guest list that mostly arrives by yacht. It is glossy and it knows it, and on the right afternoon there is nowhere more fun.
Photo: Courtesy of Nikki Beach
Where Riviera Meets Emirates
Named for the sixties model and styled like a French Riviera daydream, Twiggy stretches a hundred-metre infinity pool along Jumeirah’s water. The mood is playful and grown-up at once, Mediterranean plates, sixties artwork on the walls, and a long lazy lunch that eases into cocktails. This is Dubai doing understatement, which is rarer here than you would expect.
Photo: Dara Milovic, Charles Stif
Inside the One&Only Royal Mirage, DRIFT is the refined end of the Dubai scene: muted tones, clean lines, and a beach that looks straight across the water to the Burj Al Arab. Private cabanas come with butler service and their own pools, the kitchen leans coastal Mediterranean, and the whole thing is pitched at calm rather than commotion. Come for a slow, expensive, beautiful day.
Photo: Courtesy of DRIFT Beach
