Pirouette – Nice's acrobatic answer to a one-star address

Pirouette opened in November 2023 at 34 rue Bonaparte, a short walk from the fishing boats of Nice's port and only a few doors from Les Agitateurs, the gastronomic address that earned Samuel Victori and Juliette Busetto a MICHELIN Star in January 2021. Where Les Agitateurs runs on set-course discipline, Pirouette is the couple's looser, faster sibling: a short seasonal carte, plates built for sharing, two sittings a night. It took over the premises of Le Garde Manger, the delicatessen the pair had opened on the same street during the pandemic. Pirouette carries no star of its own — it is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, the recognition reserved for kitchens whose cooking and intent stand out even without a star. Day to day, the stoves answer to chef Brice Costa, a Hôtel Negresco alumnus who trained alongside a Meilleur Ouvrier de France and MICHELIN-starred chef.

01The room and the setting

The restaurant occupies a former neighbourhood grocery, and Fooding's own notes on the room describe a classic, muted space that combines exposed stone walls, white tablecloths and golden light fixtures. The dining room holds around thirty-four covers, extended in the warmer months by roughly a dozen tables on a street-side terrace, a few minutes on foot from the harbour. It is a deliberately different register from the hushed precision next door: louder, faster, built for plates to travel round the table rather than sit in front of one diner.

02The chefs behind it

Samuel Victori and his partner Juliette Busetto are graduates of the Paul Bocuse Institute in Lyon; they trained with three-star chefs Michel Troisgros and Éric Frechon before opening Les Agitateurs in Nice's Le Port district in 2018, the venture that brought them a MICHELIN Star within three years. Pirouette itself is run on the stoves by chef Brice Costa, formerly of the kitchens of the Hôtel Negresco, who trained alongside a Meilleur Ouvrier de France and MICHELIN-starred chef before taking charge of this second address for Victori and Busetto.

Insider tip

Closed Tue & Wed; two evening sittings; weekend lunch available.

03The cooking

The carte stays deliberately short — six starters, six mains — and moves between French bistro tradition and unannounced detours: lamb served as tacos wrapped in greens, ravioles finished with Asian accents, a pigeon-and-foie-gras pithiviers that reads classic until it lands on the table. Dishes are designed to circulate rather than belong to a single plate, and the menu turns with the seasons and the morning's deliveries — familiar at first glance, then prone to a turn nobody saw coming.

04What to order

La Méditerranée: the day's catch with a vegetable stew cooked in rockfish soup and a rouille.

The pigeon-and-foie-gras pithiviers, served with a crunchy salad, figs and a short, reduced jus.

Le Casse-noisette: Paris-Brest cream, whey ice cream and a hazelnut-caramel crunch to finish.

05When to go and booking

Pirouette closes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. On Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays it opens for dinner only, across two sittings at 6.30pm and 9.30pm. On Saturdays and Sundays the kitchen also opens at lunch, at noon or 1.30pm, for the kind of table where nobody is watching the clock. Bookings run through the group's own system, and since Les Agitateurs sits a few doors down the same street, an early dinner at one followed by a nightcap near the other is a local habit worth borrowing.

06The neighbourhood

Rue Bonaparte runs through Nice's Port district, a grid of ochre façades only minutes from the fishing boats moored along the quay. The nearest tram stops are Place Garibaldi on line 1 and Le Port on line 2, and parking is easiest at the Barla or Port car parks — or, with a little luck, directly outside the door.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.