Flaveur – Nice's only Two-Star table, cooked four-handed

On rue Gubernatis, a quiet street in central Nice between the avenue Jean Médecin and place Masséna, Flaveur runs one of the smallest dining rooms in French gastronomy from one of its most quietly audacious kitchens. The restaurant belongs to two brothers from Nice, Gaël and Mickaël Tourteaux, who cook as a genuine four-handed team rather than splitting duties between them. They opened Flaveur in 2008, and the house has gone on to become the only Two-MICHELIN-Starred restaurant in the city, having been awarded its first star in 2011 and a second in February 2018. Gault Millau has since rated it four toques and 17/20. Behind the stoves, the cooking reads like a map of the brothers' own lives, built on Niçois fish and Alpine produce lit up by the spices and fruits of a childhood spent in Guadeloupe.

01The room and the setting

Flaveur occupies a corner room on rue Gubernatis, facing the small, literary square Durandy in the centre of Nice. Inside, the space is famously tight – a handful of tables rather than a grand dining room – and the Cannes-based designer Jean Rogliano has treated the white walls as an imaginary aquarium, fixing pale wooden fish shapes to black vertical battens across them.

A single oversized fish bone, carved from the same light wood, separates the dining room from the bar, a motif that resurfaces again in some of the brothers' own plate presentations. The effect is intimate rather than theatrical: one of the smallest two-star rooms on the Riviera, seating around twenty at a time.

02The chefs

Gaël and Mickaël Tourteaux are Niçois by birth, trained at the same catering school in Nice and are said to have even sat their final exams in the same room. Both then spent years together in the kitchens of the Negresco, working under Alain Llorca and later Michel Del Burgo, before one of the brothers went on to cook alongside Pierre Gagnaire in London.

Insider tip

Book ahead; around 20 covers, closed Sunday and Monday, highest MICHELIN price category.

The pair opened Flaveur together in 2008, determined to build a kitchen that told their own story rather than someone else's. A childhood spent in Guadeloupe left its mark: the Tourteaux now keep their own growers in the hills of Bellet on the edge of Nice, raising mangoes and papayas to keep their supply chain short.

03The cooking

The kitchen's instinct is to refuse a choice between local produce and spices brought from far away: both tend to appear on the same plate. Past specialities have included Mediterranean lobster, poultry from Pierlas dressed with a peanut rougail, and Nice-caught scorpion fish set in a broth sharpened with vadouvan, a heavily aromatic Indian spice blend.

On a menu that runs to barely one page, dish titles such as a pairing of Piedmont beef with tamarind, or saffron with shellfish, point to the same habit of setting one Riviera ingredient against a single, unexpected partner from further afield.

04What to order

The current Menu Exploration runs six or seven courses (€235 or €290) and opens with L'Iode et les Épices, built around the Terroir Maralpin, before moving through a course of caviar, Carnaroli rice and squid under the heading La Riviera et le Piémont, and the day's catch from fisherman Steve Molinari, dressed with vadouvan and lovage. A course built on Piedmont veal and green curry marks La Rencontre de deux Terroirs, before dessert turns south again with Retour des Caraïbes – pineapple and aged rum – and a textural play that nods to pan massala. Lunch is a tighter four courses at €195.

For a longer evening, the nine-course Menu Toutes Latitudes (€330) adds a Mediterranean lobster course, La Baie de Nice, and a cocoa-and-mushroom dessert called Le Galabé. A Mediterranean lobster supplement, €85 per person, can also be added to the shorter menu.

05Wine and drinks

Each tasting menu can be paired by the glass, in three tiers: three 12cl glasses for €85, four for €110, or a six-glass flight, poured in smaller measures, for €160. The MICHELIN Guide lists an interesting wine list among the restaurant's facilities, alongside air conditioning and full wheelchair access.

06When to go and booking

Flaveur has traditionally served lunch Tuesday to Friday and dinner Tuesday to Saturday, closing on Sundays and Mondays. With a room of around twenty covers, booking ahead – particularly for Friday or Saturday dinner – matters more here than almost anywhere else in Nice. MICHELIN places the restaurant in its highest price category, reflecting menus that run from €195 for the four-course lunch to €330 for nine courses, before wine.

07The neighbourhood

Rue Gubernatis sits at the quieter, residential edge of central Nice, a short walk from the shops of avenue Jean Médecin and the wide piazza of place Masséna, and directly opposite the small, tree-lined square Durandy. It is a address that rewards those who come looking for it rather than pass it by on the way to the promenade.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.