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Best Restaurants in Nice

From Michelin-starred fine dining to authentic local cuisine, discover Nice's most distinguished restaurants. Curated, tested, and approved by our expert editors.

47
Restaurants
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Michelin Starred
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Fine Dining
By Mes Prestiges Editorial Team

Casual Dining

Delicious food in relaxed settings

Where to Eat in Nice?

Nice eats in two registers that rarely overlap. There is the genuine Niçoise canon — pissaladière, stockfish, stuffed vegetables, pistou — kept alive in cash-only rooms in the old town, and there is the Riviera fine-dining tier strung along the seafront and up the hill. The two coexist without pretending to be each other, which is what makes the city honest. The defining address, La Merenda, has no telephone and takes no cards: chef Dominique Le Stanc left a two-star kitchen at the Negresco to cook the regional repertoire on a handful of stools, and you book by walking in.

The map reads by district. Vieux Nice is the heart of the regional cooking — La Merenda, Chez Acchiardo, Le Bistrot d'Antoine and the market-bistro Le Comptoir du Marché — with Peixes for seafood and ceviche and Lavomatique for natural wine. La Petite Maison flies the Provençal-Niçoise flag for the see-and-be-seen crowd. The Promenade des Anglais carries the grand-hotel tier at Le Chantecler inside the Negresco; Le Port / Lympia is where Restaurant JAN sits; and Cap de Nice / Mont Boron holds the seaside addresses, La Réserve de Nice and Le Plongeoir out on its rock.

Stars and the Old Town

Nice carries Michelin attention at both ends. Le Chantecler, the Negresco dining room under MOF chef Virginie Basselot, and Restaurant JAN in the port — chef Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen's French-South African kitchen, starred since 2016 — anchor the formal tier; tasting menus there run well into three figures per head. The old-town bistrots sit in a different economy entirely, plats around the €18-26 mark, and they reward you for showing up rather than for booking ahead.

Reservation Tips

For the starred rooms — Le Chantecler, Restaurant JAN — book two to three weeks out, longer across July and August when the coast fills. The Vieux Nice institutions take far fewer reservations: La Merenda is in-person only, and the small bistrots turn over fast, so go at opening or accept a wait. Shoulder season, May and September, is the smart window — the terraces are open, the seafront breathes, and tables loosen up.

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