Eating Your Time Away in Nice

A place that treats people so well like Nice does, in terms of Mediterranean salty-fresh breezes, galet French beaches, carnival-like festivities and entertaining museums, well, such a place is bound to have some special cuisine in store.

Light and fresh food that is actually delicious for once
Still, donâ t expect great smoking chunks of beef or pork or some such. What youâ ll get is some good, light, healthy food and the meat in it will be mostly sheep, lamb, chicken and some small game. The reason for this is geographical and historical, which translates to a long life of cooking in a Mediterranean climate and on a Mediterranean coast, with its short intervals of intense rainfall that make pasture and vegetable production difficult and dependent on irrigation.

So, locals ate we may call frugal food, and they did it for such a long time that their cuisine developed into an amazing range of delicious and diverse tastes and impressions, all prepared in the same light and simple fashion. Well, probably you wonâ t care much about this when youâ ll be enjoying a sandwich with Provenà al fillings such as fresh basil, goat cheese, olive oil (used for centuries instead of butter) and mesclum (a local kind of green salad); or a â tarte aux blettesâ which is a Swiss chard sweet pie; or the socca, a staple made of chickpea flour, water, olive oil and onion. Now that you have some local recipes to ponder upon, you should know that, given the geo-culinary conditions mentioned above, Nice menus also include seafood and the closely related Italian cuisine with its myriad pasta dishes.

Pink wine and fruit glazed beer
Local drinks come in as light as the food. Unlike (most of) the Nice dishes, and unlike most wines youâ re used to, the best wines here are pink It may seem strange to drink something like that at first, but soon, you will discover that it gets along just fine with your basic Mediterranean sky and your basic salade Nià oise. A word of advice: it is not practical, from the point of view of your wallet, to order a whole bottle â just ask for a â verreâ or â un demi pichetâ (50 cl) and everything will be all right. Yet, if youâ re really serious about it and wish to buy some wine in a Nice wine shop, it is advisable to accept the recommendation of the merchant or shop assistant, patiently going through a discussion of the qualities of different batches. If youâ re not an all-wine kind of person, you can always go for a special Riviera beer called â bier pression Monacoâ , which is actually good old trusty draught beer with something called Grenadine added to it â a cordial of forest fruits. The combined taste is unmistakably good.

A home-cooked perspective on restaurants in Nice
Your best bet for finding good restaurants in Nice is to go for a walk in the Old Quarter, the â Vieux Niceâ . There are other places too, of course, but this has already become a classic haven of Nice cuisine. Donâ t think that just because youâ re in Nice and these are places where they serve French food, your pockets will be suffering some extreme reductions of financial content. On the contrary, youâ ll see that â inexpensiveâ and â tasty foodâ can go together.

For example, you can try â Chez Palmyreâ on Rue Droite. Itâ s not your run-of-the-mill fancy, stiff-lipped, deluxe restaurant, itâ s just a place where you can eat really good, home-cooked, local food. At first glance, the menu doesnâ t offer a lot in terms of variety, but it does change often. A meal may very well include things like vegetable soup with croutons, salade nià oise, fishâ you get the idea â simple, yet tasty dishes. The service is friendly and unpretentious, and if the weather allows you to eat outside (the insideâ s ok, although the dà cor is not resplendent), youâ ll have the picturesque sights and sounds of Vieux Nice to help you with your digestion. â Chez Theresaâ , on Cours Saleya, is another restaurant famous for its excellent home-made food. One of the reasons that explain its seemingly ever-full tables is its peppery socca bread, served piping hot from the oven.

So it seems that Nice will provide you not only with rest for your overworked body and over-stressed mind, but will also give your stomach a blessed vacation from junk food, fat-rich diets and all other culinary hazards you impose on him all year long. There is no doubt that at least it, your stomach, will look forward to your next trip to Nice.


Laurent Fabier is well known as a partner editor for Nice Hotel network service.His experience ranges from important contributions in written media to news or online travel magazines