56 Best Restaurants in Nice and the Eastern Cote d'Azur, The French Riviera

With soaring ceilings, lush greenery, and eclectic furnishings, Hôtel Amour and its vibey restaurant exude a chic and inviting atmosphere. Here you can enjoy Mediterranean-inspired dishes at breakfast, lunch, dinner, or weekend brunch. Natural light floods the space during the day, and candlelight makes the ambience intimate in the evenings. In summer, dine on the rooftop by the pool to truly elevate your experience. 

Chef Justin Schmitt earned a Michelin star just seven months into his tenure at the restaurant in the Château Eza hotel—a testament to his inventive approach to gastronomy. Inspired by nature (all dishes include a hint of green, his signature stroke), his travels, and his love of cycling through the region’s landscapes, Schmitt’s dishes are a celebration of Mediterranean flavors, and his seafood-centric creations, like roasted satay octopus with whiskey and sweetcorn (a must-try), blend artful presentation with culinary mastery. The intimate 50-seat dining room, perched 1,400 feet above the Mediterranean, features floor-to-ceiling windows that open in summer, offering a semi-alfresco experience with jaw-dropping vistas.

There are plenty of places where you can sample socca, 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. On weekend nights, people are willing to wait an hour or more for the petite or grande plates. 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.

A Roman family runs this restaurant, so expect delicious and hearty Italian food, including what might just be the best pasta of your life. Try the amatriciana with tomato sauce, guanciale, pecorino, and pepper to see if that's true.

The food might be a bit overpriced, but where else in the world could you eat in a dining room under a Picasso, on a terrace beside a ceramic Léger mural, or next to a pool amid an idyllic garden with a Calder sculpture? The quirky but unpretentious Provençal menu has hardly changed over 50 years—the hors d’oeuvres de la Colombe (basket of crudité and hunks of charcuterie), salmon quenelles, and Grand Marnier soufflé flambé are as acclaimed as ever. If you can't afford a room at the world-famous hotel but still want wonderful Instagram moments, a dinner here does the trick.

Although lunch and dinner are delicious, this the place to come for a breakfast of freshly sliced country breads, mouthwatering Ö Jardin Sucré jams (say, raspberry and violet or apple-pear with hazelnut), and organic yogurts—all made in France. Sure, you can still have your flaky croissant, but here the friendly owners deliver a toaster to your table to grill the bread exactly to your liking. Throw in Alain Milliet vineyard juices and creamy café au lait, and you’ll be planning to come back before you can wipe the jam off your chin.

The back-to-bistro boom climaxed here when Dominique Le Stanc retired his crown at the Negresco to take over this tiny, unpretentious landmark of Provençal cuisine. For decades he has worked in a miniature open kitchen creating ultimate versions of stuffed sardines, tagliatelle with pistou, slow-simmered daubes (beef stews), and the quintessential stockfish (the local lutefisk)—but don’t worry, pizza is an option, too. There are two seatings at both lunch and dinner. You'll have to stop by in person or book via the website to reserve entry to the inner sanctum as there's no phone—and note that credit cards are not accepted either.

Chef Jean Imbert celebrates his two great loves, gastronomy and cinema, at this Michelin-starred restaurant named after the highest award bestowed at the Cannes Film Festival. On the menu, which is designed like a film script, locally sourced seafood such as John Dory, spiny lobster, and scorpion fish have pride of place. A three-course seasonal tasting menu is priced at €140; five-courses is €220. The priceless memorabilia on display includes Leo's Wolf of Wall Street sunglasses, Harry Potter scripts, and Robert De Niro’s boxing shorts from Raging Bull.

Nestled on a charming cobbled square beside a babbling fountain and adorned with pastel blue shutters, La Place de Mougins offers the quintessential area dining experience. Each month, chef Denis Fétisson, a Marseille native, expertly showcases regional flavors on a creative menus of dishes that highlight a produit à l'honneur, that is to say, one seasonal ingredient, such as truffle, foie gras, or asparagus. A standout is the Gourmandise à Mougins tasting menu (€85) featuring Fétisson's renowned Golden Egg with ossetra Kaviari caviar.

You wouldn't expect to find a restaurant with two Michelin stars set in a residential area, 10 minutes by car from La Croisette, but Bruno Oger promises you an unforgettable experience in this très cozy spot surrounded by centennial trees and gardens. Yes, it's pricey (six-course set lunch menu €160 or €175 with drinks, six-course set dinner menu €325 or €395 with drinks), but you'll have bragging rights that you and Robert De Niro have shared the same chef. That's right, Oger is official chef of the Cannes Film Festival. If this is beyond your means, opt for the three-course Formule Bistrot menu (€45) at Le Bistrot des Anges (Michelin Bib Gourmand), under the same management. While waiting, sink into an armchair, and watch the fashion parade at L'Ange Bar.

You won't find any "concept" cooking here, just pure French bistro fare at its finest—beef salad with anchovy dressing, butter risotto with truffles, sliced leg of lamb, and traditional pork casserole. Save room for the day's dessert, perhaps the wonderfully warm peach-and-frangipane tart. The prices here are as appealing as the menu. If you can't score a reservation, try one of the two Peixes restaurants (4 rue de l'Opéra and 5 rue Bonaparte), where chef Antoine Crespo serves delightful seafood tapas.

With a handwritten menu board, wine bottles as far as the eye can see, and a low-key assemblage of chairs and tables that look like they came out of a 1970s-era attic, this is the kind of authentic French bistro people travel to Provence for. Owner Sébastien Perinetti and chef Elmahdi Mobarik source the freshest hyperlocal produce to bring you a parade of taste sensations, all seductively priced. Each selection is described by Sébastien in its entirety, perhaps a Sardinian “fregola” pasta with cuttlefish and peas from the fields of St-Isidore, with a peach soup made with white peaches from St-Martin-du-Var.

Christian Morisset’s Michelin-starred restaurant is named after the 50-year-old fig tree that, along with a canopy of vines, shades the private courtyard. This is one of the region's best restaurants, and the haute-cuisine chef bases his scrumptious set menus on what's available at the daily market. Yes, it's pricey—à la carte is around €70 for a main, and don't choke when you see a €3,900 bottle of 1990 Château Lafite Rothschild on the wine list; like everything else on the menu, it's there for a reason.

Owners Renaud and Marilène Geille pack this popular eatery by offering exceptional surroundings, fabulous food, and flawless service. The fish dishes are supreme, lightly accentuated by seasonal vegetables, and the magret carnard seems reinvented. The desserts may not seem particularly adventurous, but the delicate combination of salty and sweet will knock your socks off (if you’re wearing any). 

It might look like just another pizzeria, but Le Serre is a family-run restaurant where more than just pizza is prepared with care. The warm welcome ensures that the restaurant attracts plenty of locals who have learned to tread carefully around tourist traps. Daube, the Provençal beef-and-wine stew with herbs, often tops the set menu; the chef starts its preparation at midnight for the next day.

Tucked away on a quaint square, this restaurant charms with atmospheric surroundings and menu of delicious classics. The paleron de bœuf (braised beef shoulder) is cooked to melt-in-your-mouth perfection, and the toasted marshmallows in chocolate make the perfect sweet treat. The two-course lunch menu is a good value, and candlelight makes this cozy in the evenings.

Chef Mauro Colagreco—who learned his craft in Latin America before working with the likes of Bernard Loiseau in Burgundy and both Alain Passard and Alain Ducasse in Paris—helms this innovative establishment, which has garnered three Michelin stars and is frequently cited as the world's best restaurant. Colagreco is one of the young chefs whose style has been dubbed la jeune cuisine—for him, the plate is a palette, and each of the ingredients, which are often gathered from the on-site vegetable garden, has its precise place and significance. The airy dining room overlooking a cascading garden and the sea on Menton's outer edge is the ideal setting for Colagreco's expressive (and expensive!) cooking; the nine-course €450 menu featuring roots, leaves, flowers, and fruits is particularly intense. In 2023, a glassed-enclosed kitchen was added, as was La Puerta, a space adjacent to the restaurant that offers a more intimate experience. Can't get a reservation? Don't fret. Colagreco is also at the helm of Casa Fuego, an Argentine asado (grill) restaurant, and La PecoraNegra, an artisanal pizzeria.

This restaurant's unique concept centers around a blind tasting menu, refreshed every two weeks, where you savor each dish without prior knowledge of its components—a fun, innovative approach to gastronomy that encourages a deep appreciation of flavors and textures. Options include €25 three-course set lunch menus on Tuesday and Saturday, as well as €55 six-course tasting menus. Reservation are required.

Judging by the crowd of regulars flocking to his restaurant, Daniel Desavie has built quite a reputation for his classic Provençal dishes—hardly surprising given that he was trained for 23 years by the late Roger Vergé at the famous Moulins de Mougins. Try the half lobster with cranberry beans and wild mushrooms salad in herb vinaigrette before tucking into thinly sliced beef with truffle coulis. If you want to add wine, a sommelier will help you turn your classic meal into a masterful one. There are splendidly set-priced lunch and dinner menus at both the restaurant and his more relaxed Le Bistrot, which features a weekly market offering. 

Part of a tiny Old Town enclave determined to resist the press of tourism, this casual tavern has tables scattered across a sunny terrace on Place Safranier. Chef Gaïatto Olivier is in charge of a refined menu that reflects his five years in the kitchen at the celebrated Eden Roc—think roasted catch of the day with chickpea stew, chorizo, mussels fennel, and coriander—but at a fraction of the price.

For a taste of the Amalfi Coast on the Côte D'Azur, head to this chic yet welcoming spot with a prime quayside location. Dine on the terrace by the fountain and olive trees or amid the bougainvillea-draped interiors. There's an extensive pizza menu, the paëlla comes highly recommended, and the oven-baked rigatoni portion is enormous (thankfully, the restaurant provides a box for leftovers—not a given in France home—as it's too good to waste). 

At this restaurant, a beacon to all fish lovers since 1953, well-trained staffers negotiate cramped quarters to lay down heaping seafood platters, shrimp casseroles, and piles of oysters shucked to order. It's always busy, though, so don't expect rapid service. Arrive early (noon for lunch, 6 pm for dinner) to get a table and avoid a line.

Specializing in salads, pizzas, and pastas—prepared on the spot from local produce—this place offers a refreshing, light alternative to all those heavy French dishes. But Attimi is as hot as the lasagna Bolognese it serves, so you'll need to reserve or eat early. A seat on the terrace next to the fountain at the end of Place Masséna lets you dine with a side order of people-watching.

The best place to grab a bite in Place Garibaldi, this café has an eclectic feel that's as appealing as the food and friendliness—and it's a fabulous location for people-watching.

Long a showplace for Riviera luxury, the Negresco is replete with Régence-fashion salons decked out with 18th-century wood boiserie and Aubusson carpets. Its main dining room, the Michelin-star Chantecler, has been playing musical chefs for the past few years and currently features a new-generation culinary artist, Virginie Basselot, and her selections of impressive haute cuisine. In the cave, there are 15,000 bottles (if you're counting).

When chef Jean-Paul Battaglia decided to set up shop in Cannes, gastronomes were delighted, and he does not disappoint—so much so that it’s not uncommon for tourists to eat here more than once during their stay. The roast beef is succulent, and the spicy lobster has just the right kick. L'Affable is always packed (and often noisy), so reservations are essential. Note that dinner service is a €55 fixed-price menu with lots of tempting choices, ditto for lunch (€28 and €33).

The owners of this St-Paul-de-Vence institution have magically created a contemporary bistro, where a few seats on a second-story terrace (book in advance) overlook the street below. Choose the plat du jour, or order from an à la carte menu with everything from an organic egg to a chicken burger to a Jerusalem artichoke and shimeji-mushroom confit with smoked duck breast. Half bottles of wine are available, so sit on the terrace with une verre, and breathe in the views of the fountain square—an experience that more than compensates for occasions when service is slow or the kitchen runs out of certain dishes.

This is a place to linger over warm lobster salad or sole meunière in butter with almonds while watching the world go by. The food is tasty, but the fabulous setting of this veritable institution is reflected in the prices (and the occasional attitude from the servers). The seaside restaurant opened in 1938, and proprietor Germaine Halap soon became a second mother to American naval officers and sailors who came into port. A movie has been made about "Mère Germaine," and excerpts from the book Mother of the Sixth Fleet were published in Reader's Digest.

This wineshop with some 300 labels and a few tables and chairs at the back is really about vins naturels—unfiltered, unsulfured wines made by small producers from hand-harvested grapes—but the often-simple food served here also happens to be excellent. Whether you choose a charcuterie or cheese plate or one of the handful of hot dishes (like spaghetti with razor clams or octopus cooked in red wine), you can expect it to be generous and fresh. No corkage fee is charged for wines off the shelf, a rarity for a wine bar. Reservations are advised for Friday and Saturday night.