Peixes Bonaparte – raw fish between Place Garibaldi and the old port

Peixes Bonaparte occupies a corner between Place Garibaldi and Nice's old port, the second address of a project built almost entirely around fish eaten raw. The original Peixes opened on rue Jacques Médecin in 2015, the work of Armand Crespo and Loïs Guenzati; when the Bonaparte site later came up for sale, Guenzati bought it, rebaptised it Peixes-Bonaparte and handed the stoves to Pierre Lorenzo, a cook who had passed through the kitchens of Guy Martin, Julien Roucheteau at the Lancaster, Stéphanie Le Quellec at the Prince de Galles and Jean-Denis Rieubland at the Negresco before returning to where his career in Nice began. It is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, one of the city's addresses singled out for a menu that treats the catch almost exclusively raw — ceviche, tartare, carpaccio, tataki — sharpened with the citrus of South America and the herbs of the Mediterranean. The room looks towards the street rather than the sea, but the cooking does not let you forget where the produce comes from.

01The room and the setting

The Bonaparte address is built for volume and for sun: a large terrace that fills first on fine days, and inside, a contemporary take on a blue-and-white seafaring bistro that recalls the tiled interiors of Portugal or Greece rather than anything typically Niçois. The restaurant sits between Place Garibaldi and the harbour, on the edge of the old town, a short walk from both. Behind the bar a mixologist works through the cocktail list, a detail that marks this out from Nice's more classical fish restaurants.

02The chef

Pierre Lorenzo came up through high-end Parisian and Niçois kitchens — Guy Martin, Julien Roucheteau at the Hôtel Lancaster, Stéphanie Le Quellec at the Prince de Galles, and Jean-Denis Rieubland at the Negresco — before returning to Peixes, the restaurant where, as the trade press noted at the time, he had made his culinary debut. He took on Peixes-Bonaparte in 2022 as chef de cuisine and associate, built around aromatic, spice-led, resolutely raw-fish cooking that reveals itself from the first page of the menu.

Insider tip

Open daily except Sunday, 12:00–22:00 non-stop; a shorter menu runs until 7pm.

03The cooking

The kitchen's premise is simple to state and harder to execute well: fish and shellfish worked essentially raw, to show off the quality of the fish itself, declined as ceviche, carpaccio, tartare and tataki, each dressed with flavours and textures chosen to surprise rather than to reassure. The team favours short supply chains and seasonal produce, which is why the menu is rewritten roughly every two months rather than fixed for the year.

04Wine and drinks

The wine list leans towards natural wines, described on the restaurant's own site as the sommelier's particular passion and a reflection of the whole project's philosophy. Alongside the bottle list, a cocktail menu is mixed to order at the bar, giving the room a looser, more bar-like energy than a typical fish restaurant on this stretch of the coast.

05What to order

The scallop ceviche (ceviche de Saint-Jacques) and the white-fish ceviche are among the dishes diners return for, alongside a veal tataki and a side of sweet potato that regularly appear on the printed menu. Elsewhere the card runs to cod accras, sea bass ceviche and oysters, a soupy Tom Yum built around octopus, and a seaweed bread served alongside the ceviches. Dessert tends towards a brownie paired with wasabi ice cream — one more example of the kitchen's taste for a surprising last note.

06The neighbourhood

This stretch of Nice, between the grand ochre arcades of Place Garibaldi and the fishing boats of the old port, sits at the hinge between the 19th-century new town and Vieux Nice. It is a part of the city locals use as much as visitors do, which keeps the terrace busy with a mixed crowd rather than a purely touristic one, and makes Peixes-Bonaparte an easy stop before or after a walk around the port or up into the old town's narrow streets.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.