Marlow, the British-inspired restaurant at the heart of Monaco’s new Mareterra district, has been named on the Prix Versailles 2026 list of the world’s most beautiful restaurants — just over a year after opening its doors.
Marlow joins a list that spans Hong Kong to Los Angeles, Helsinki to Cape Town — sixteen restaurants selected by the Prix Versailles jury for the harmony between their design, their setting, and what they put on the plate. As secretary general Jérôme Gouadain put it, these are places where “the art of hospitality meets the art of creating the unforgettable.”
A fictional character and a cabinet of curiosities
Opened in January 2025 as part of the Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer portfolio, Marlow was designed by artist and interior architect Hugo Toro, whose concept draws on a fictional British character — a nod to the long history of English visitors on the Riviera from the mid-18th century onwards.
The Prix Versailles jury described the result as “warm and sophisticated, almost eccentric,” noting that the spaces arranged around a sculptural central bar function as so many cabinets of curiosities. Custom furniture brings different eras into dialogue, while the menu reinterprets British classics within that same sensibility. “The restaurant Marlow seems to have always been there,” the jury wrote, “like an anchor, a meeting point for residents and visitors.”
UNESCO-backed recognition
Supported by UNESCO, the Prix Versailles recognises contemporary achievements in architecture and design across the restaurant, retail and campus sectors, assessing projects on the quality of their design, creativity, relationship to their environment, and the coherence between space and menu.
Marlow’s inclusion on the 2026 list makes it eligible for one of three global titles to be awarded later this year: the Prix Versailles, the Interior Mention, or the Exterior Mention.
To see all the remarkable restaurants who made this year’s list, click here.
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Photo source: Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer