When it comes to pastimes and games, the English have given the world quite a few. Soccer, rugby, tennis, croquet, badminton and cricket for a start. They might like to claim golf as well, but I think I'd give that to the Scots. Apart from these games they're largely responsible for a lot of winter sports too, like Alpine skiing and the Cresta Run in Sangt Moritz. You could also argue that they invented the French Riviera.

Obviously the French were in possession of it, but it used to be a minor winter playground for rich Parisians until the English came for the summer during the nineteenth century. When I was a child in English schools, the September topic of conversation was 'We spent the summer on the Riviera.' That never meant the Italian Riviera, just the French. So profoundly did the English affect its tourism, that the sea-front in Nice is called the 'Promenade des Anglais' to mark the fact.

The English may have started the trend, but in the twenty-first century the Irish are following in droves. There are parts of the Riviera that might easily be renamed 'Little Dublin on Sea', such are the numbers of Irish taking up residence. This became clear to me when I went to see U2 play in Nice. I'd naively thought that being outside of Dublin the guest list was unlikely to be overwhelmed with the Irish. How wrong I was. There were more people on the guest list in Nice than there were in Dublin.

The upshot of this was a lot of partying, but it also resulted in a meal which had an unusual side to it. In a decade of reviewing restaurants the journey to the restaurant has always been a minor issue. This time the journey was more exciting than the meal. It happened like this.

I got a call from my friend Paul who asked, 'Do you want to have lunch on Paul Allen's boat?' Well, yeah. Paul Allen is the founder of Microsoft and isn't short of a bob or two. He has a yacht - well over 400 feet of one - called the Octopus, which is very beautiful. I'd already been eyeing it in Villefranche Bay, so the idea of going aboard was appealing.

The Octopus' tender, 'The Man o' War' picked us up and headed for the mother ship. The Octopus is dark blue, very shiny and very impressive. As we approached the entire back end of it lifted up, revealing a dock inside the ship into which we went. In front of us, inside the ship, a yellow submarine was docked. We walked up to the reception deck where the swimming pool, Jacuzzi and bar were, passing on a lower deck, a top-of-the-range Sikorski helicopter, the completely silent limousine of helicopters. At the front of the boat there's another helicopter, not so smart, used for getting the groceries, I suspect.

It turned out that the lunch was not going to be on the boat, instead we were going to sail to near St. Tropez for lunch at the Club 55. Veteran Riviera goers will know that the Club 55 is a must-see, it's a famous beach restaurant where the French fashionistas like to be seen. That was a couple hours away, so in the meantime Paul Allen gave us a tour of the Octopus. The art on the walls is particularly impressive, there are Monets, Jackson Pollacks, Roy Lichtensteins that I remember, plus many more that I don't. We saw the high-definition cinema, which is stunning in its clarity, the gym, the recording studio (Paul Allen is a good guitarist), the library, various lounges and then my favourite room. Right at the bottom of the ship there's a small lounge with sofas on four sides and a floor made of eighteen inches of glass plate, through which you watch the marine life beneath your feet. I was captivated for an hour or more by the mullet, the mackerel, the sardines and the occasional barracuda that populated the feeding frenzy below us.

It was five o'clock when we got into the tender to land at Club 55. I've no idea what it looks like when you approach from the land, but as you walk up the beach to the restaurant you realize just how crowded Riviera beaches are in August. The beach gives way to a pinery under whose low trees there are tables set out in the shade, duck-boards making the passage ways easier to walk. There's a huge number of tables, the place must seat upwards of a couple of hundred, and there's a huge number of waiting staff as well, so the service is prompt.

Like many Provençal restaurants the tables are already set with a wicker trug of crudités, so you can start crunching on crisp vegetables dunked in aioli as soon as you sit. We started with a mix of starters: eggs Benedict, charcuterie, cheeses, olives, salads and pastas. This we followed with two main course choices, escalopes Milanese which were nicely done - thin and crisp and served plain with lemon and a salad - and dorade, a Mediterranean fish simply grilled and also served with salad. A very good Domaine de la Rouillere Grande Reserve Rosé from Provence made a perfect accompaniment to this lunch.

Club 55 doesn't serve haute cuisine, but that's not what you need for lunch on a hot beach. It serves simple foods that are well-made, it's unspeakably chic and if you're near St. Tropez, it's a must.