Fodor's Expert Review Chez Pipo Socca

There are plenty of places where you can sample socca in Old Town, but if you want to understand why so much fuss is made in Nice over the chickpea pancake, this out-of-the-way café behind the port is the place to go. As per usual, a batter of chickpea flour, water, olive oil, and salt is baked in giant copper tins in a wood-fired oven, but here, the cook expertly scrapes the surface of the nearly-cooked dough with a metal spatula so that it comes out extra-crispy. It's hard to explain why, but this is socca you can eat in large quantities even if you're not hungry: proof is the line on weekend nights, when people are willing to wait an hour or more for their petite (€3.50) or grande plates (€5.90). If you can't make it to this location, Chez Pipo is also at Terminal 1 at the Nice Airport. For the lowdown on everything socca, watch the short We Eat Socca Here by American filmmaker Scott Petersen.