Racines in Nice – Bruno Cirino's vegetable table, closed for 2026

Bruno Cirino left two stars in La Turbie to cook nothing but vegetables in a small bistro near Nice's Libération market. Racines keeps its MICHELIN star in the 2026 guide, but the restaurant is closed for the whole 2026 season.

For years Bruno Cirino was the chef of Hostellerie Jérôme, a two-star restaurant in La Turbie, high above Monaco, and of the village café next door, Le Café de la Fontaine. In February 2020 he opened something quite different in the centre of Nice: Racines, a small restaurant built entirely around vegetables. The MICHELIN Guide 2026 lists it with one star.

Before planning a visit, note this: the restaurant's website states that Racines is closed for the 2026 season, and the MICHELIN Guide marks it as temporarily closed. No date for reopening had been announced when we checked on 25 October 2026.

01The chef

Cirino trained with Jo Rostang, Roger Vergé, Jacques Maximin and Alain Ducasse – a roll call of the great Riviera kitchens – and worked at the Royal Monceau in Paris, the Negresco in Nice, the Juana in Juan-les-Pins and Château Eza, where he and Dominique Le Stanc held a MICHELIN star in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At Racines he works with his long-standing right-hand man, José Vidal.

02A kitchen-garden restaurant

Racines calls itself a "tout légumes" restaurant. Fish and meat are absent; each plate is built from the vegetables of the day, matched with a jus, a sauce or a broth. They come from organic farmers and gardeners Cirino has worked with for years, and from gardens in Èze village and around the Trophée des Alpes in La Turbie. The MICHELIN inspectors describe a single set menu, bargain-priced for its level, of local organic or sustainably grown produce picked only when perfectly ripe, built on the Mediterranean staples of garlic, olive oil and basil.

Insider tip

Closed for the 2026 season; check before planning a visit.

The wines come from Cirino's own cellar in La Turbie, mostly from family estates chosen to suit the cooking, and the MICHELIN Guide notes a fine selection of reasonably priced vintages.

03The room

The restaurant is a few steps from the Halle de la Gare du Sud and the Libération market, in a district of Nice that has been entirely renovated. Inside it follows the codes of a bistro: Prussian-blue walls, Art Deco touches, objects from the 1970s and plenty of pale wood.

04The last menu

The most recent menu on the restaurant's website, Le Chant de la Terre, gives a sense of the cooking: Neapolitan-style aubergine compote with Datterino tomato water, autumn white morels in their own jus, vegetables from the garden served like a pot-au-feu with pistou, spiny artichoke heart with a Comté emulsion, a small potato cake with ceps and truffle jus, a fine tart of citrus from the garden, and arlettes with wild strawberries and sweet-potato ice cream.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.