Louise is Monaco's leading travel journalist. She has interviewed numerous celebrities for her Lunch with Monaco Life series, while she is best known for her acerbic restaurant reviews in  Monaco Life  which became a viral sensation.  Louise is a food & wine columnist for Monaco’s daily news site and periodical, Hello Monaco. As well as writing about the principality for publications across the globe, she is interviewed regularly about life in Monte Carlo (such as BBC Radio 4 and  CBS Broadcasting with Peter Greenberg).

Monaco’s answer to Giles Coren, Louise is at once erudite and down-to-earth. She has changed the face of the principality’s dining scene with such spellbinding style that readers and restaurateurs alike respect her."

 Ian Brodie, Editor-in-Chief @ Monaco Life

Monaco Yacht Show

Louise Simpson reviews Alain Ducasse Education’s tailor-made culinary program for yacht chefs

It’s 8am as my Mini Cooper Cabrio motors into Cap d’Ail. The harbour is still asleep as I drive to the far side where several of the world’s most impressive superyachts lie. These majestic white whales dwarf the catamaran minnows on the other side of the jetty. These cruise liner-sized floating empires provide gainful employment for crews of up to two dozen full-time staff and a depository for priceless works of art and state-of-the-art technology. Some contain private cinemas, helipads, swimming pools, gyms and even music recording studios. The typical staff-to-guest ratio is about two-to-one.

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Song for your Supper

 The time of year has come for lounging upon a beach recliner with a book. My current read is about Quantum Physics. I’ve just finished a chapter on wave-particle duality: the theory that light can behave as both a wave and a particle. In other words, light can be both at the same time*.

Being two things at once brings me to Song Qi, the brainchild of serial restaurant entrepreneur Alan Yau. On the one hand, Song Qi is the perfect restaurant. Everything works seamlessly from the smiling waiting staff to the stylish interior decor. The dining room resonates understated affluence from the chartreuse-velour seating to the marble tables and central crescent of golden poles. Even the black-lacquered ladies’ room feels luxurious.

My partner and I went recently for lunch and ordered two 29-euro lunchtime set menus: 

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The Quiet Revolutionary

Louise Simpson lunches with Joël Robuchon, the world’s most Michelin-starred chef

“I’ll never achieve everything I’d like to in life because I have so many projects in my head,” says Joël Robuchon.

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Searching for Tight Lines in a Tale of Two Cities

It was the best of sunrises. It was the worst of hangovers. My fishing trip had been postponed twice due to high winds so the expedition had fallen finally on the morrow of my birthday celebrations. Arriving at Port Hercule for 7am, my partner and I stepped gingerly aboard the fishing boat feeling a little green around the gills. Rugged fisherman Eric Rinaldi gave us his forearm to avoid a fishy handshake.

The Rinaldis mean to fishing in Monaco what the Rosbergs mean to motorsports. With fishing roots in the principality for over a century, the family moved from Ventimiglia to Monaco after WW1. Eric is the fourth generation of the Rinaldi fishing clan. You could say that fishing is in his DNA. 

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