Le Chantecler in Nice – Virginie Basselot's star at the Negresco

Behind the pink dome on the Promenade des Anglais, Le Chantecler serves Virginie Basselot's cooking among 18th-century portraits and boiseries. The Negresco's gastronomic restaurant holds one MICHELIN star.

Le Negresco has stood on the Promenade des Anglais since 1913, its pink dome one of the most recognisable silhouettes on the Riviera. From 1957 its owner, Jeanne Augier, turned it into what the hotel calls a hotel of art and history, and its gastronomic restaurant, Le Chantecler, is where that idea shows most clearly. The restaurant holds one MICHELIN star, confirmed in the 2026 guide.

01An 18th-century room

The dining room is dressed in sumptuous 18th-century décor. Together with the adjoining Salon Régence it shares a portrait of Queen Marie Leszczynska by Nattier, a portrait of Louis XV by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour, carved boiseries from the château de Chaintré and Malines leather. The floral arrangements, changed with the seasons, are by Hervé Frézal, a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, and the tableware combines pieces by Élisabeth Monroy, Sylvie Lorne and Les Demoiselles d'Anjou with the hotel's Haviland and Bernardaud collections.

In the evenings the pianist Luc Escolano plays, and in summer the restaurant opens onto the Promenade des Anglais through a landscaped terrace.

02Virginie Basselot

Basselot was born in Normandy and was named Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 2015. She has led Le Chantecler since 2018, with Michelle Gibon and Amélia Losilla as her deputies. The MICHELIN inspectors describe a creative, modern cooking built on first-class ingredients from local artisans with whom she has formed close ties, and dishes that each tell a story of purity and simplicity.

Insider tip

Dinner Wednesday to Sunday; elegant attire.

The menu names those producers: fennel from Jean-Charles Orso, butternut squash from Wilson Gomez, poultry from the Terre de Toine farm, olive oil from Champsoleil. The wine is in the hands of head sommelier Jean-Gabriel Siviragol, and the dining room is led by Julien Freulon.

03What to order

There are two set menus. Le Chant des Saveurs, in five sequences, moves from lightly smoked squid and cuttlefish from the local coast with fennel and finger-lime velouté, through Wilson Gomez's butternut with chestnuts and watercress ice, to rock red mullet à la niçoise with a caper barbajuan, farm poultry with corn from the restaurant's producer, and a Provence apple confit in olive oil with hay ice cream.

Le Chant du Coq runs to eight sequences: Mediterranean blue crab with Sologne caviar, Normandy cream and bitter orange; grilled and glazed wild mushrooms with a hazelnut tartlet and Tête de Moine; line-caught amberjack; pine morels with raw San Remo gamberoni and Colonnata lard; flame-cooked lamb from the Alpilles with shellfish and coastal herbs; cheese from the trolley; a Solliès fig roasted with Maures honey; and a light Champsoleil olive oil cream with Provence lavender sorbet and 65 per cent dark chocolate.

The same dishes can be ordered à la carte, together with a farm veal sweetbread stuffed with langoustine. The cheeses come from the affineur Georges Néry. Unusually for a restaurant of this kind, there is a children's menu, La Madeleine de Proust, for guests up to 12.

04On the Promenade

The Negresco faces the Baie des Anges at the western end of the Promenade's grandest stretch. The old town and the Cours Saleya flower market are a 15-minute walk east along the seafront, and the Musée Masséna, in its Belle Époque villa, is next door to the hotel.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.