Socca, pissaladière and Bellet – how to eat like a nissart

Chickpea pancake from the wood-fired oven, onion tart with anchovies and wine from the city's own hills. Nice's cuisine has been French intangible cultural heritage since 2019. Here are the dishes, the label that distinguishes the genuine from the tourist menu – and the addresses.

Nice has its own cuisine, and it is not the same thing as Provençal cooking. In the alleys of Vieux-Nice, socca is sold straight from the iron pan, and the menus list dishes with names in Nissart, the city's old language. Since 2019, Nice's cuisine has been included in France's inventory of intangible cultural heritage, according to Nice's tourist office. Here are the dishes to look out for – and how to find the ones made the proper way.

Socca – the chickpea pancake from the wood fire

Socca is a large, thin pancake made from chickpea flour, baked in an oven, preferably over a wood fire, and served piping hot with a golden crust, according to the Nice tourist office. Socca is eaten at markets and in small stalls in the old town. Among the places that bear the Cuisine Nissarde label, the tourist office mentions Chez Marie-Thé – Socca du Cours.

The rosé wines from Bellet are a classic match for socca.

Pissaladière, pan bagnat and petits farcis

Pissaladière is a tart with onion and anchovies. Pan bagnat is Nice's sandwich: a bread that has been soaked in olive oil and filled with vegetables, tuna and anchovies, a summer classic eaten on the go or on a terrace. Petits farcis are the season's vegetables filled with a spiced stuffing, and salade niçoise is the summer salad above all others.

In winter, warm dishes take over. Daube niçoise, a stew, is served with ravioli or gnocchi, and soupe au pistou warms you up. In the mountains of the Mercantour, people eat ravioli, polenta and stews, and on the coast, grilled fish.

The Cuisine Nissarde label

To distinguish the genuine from the tourist menus, Nice Côte d'Azur's tourist office has created the Cuisine Nissarde label. It is awarded every year to restaurants and shops that follow traditional recipes – the ingredients, proportions and preparation – and use local produce. The range spans from historic restaurants to small neighbourhood eateries. Look for the label on the door.

Among the notable addresses highlighted by the tourist office are Restaurant l'Escalinada, which also has a toque in Gault&Millau 2026, Restaurant Le Tchitchou and Chez Marie-Thé – Socca du Cours. The tourist office's list of restaurants serving Niçoise cuisine also includes, among others, A Buteghinn'a, Lu Fran Calin, La Ratapignata, Chez Cane and Auberge de l'Aire Saint-Michel, as well as shops such as D'Aqui and Lou Pelandroun.

Olives from Nice and wine from Bellet

Nice olives have a protected designation of origin, AOP, and are used for tapenade or pressed into oil at the last remaining olive mills. They are sold, among other places, at the market on Cours Saleya.

The wine comes from the city's own hills. Bellet is an AOC grown exclusively within the municipality of Nice, on terraces 200–400 metres above the left bank of the Var river, and it is said to be the only French wine appellation that lies entirely within a major city. The appellation gained its status on 11 November 1941 and covers around 50 hectares. Production is around 120,000 bottles a year, of red, rosé and white, and the main grapes are folle noire and braquet for the reds and rosés and rolle, or vermentino, for the whites. In 2020 there were nine producers, among them Château de Bellet and Château de Crémat. The reds go well with daube, the whites with sole and the rosés with socca.

Learn to cook yourself

The tourist office mentions Atelier Cuisine Niçoise in Vieux-Nice, where you cook a classic dish and then eat it, and food walks with, among others, Nice Food and Wine Tours and Food Tours Nice. Start the morning at the market – read more in our guide to a morning at Cours Saleya – and see more destinations among our Riviera guides on metromode.co. The street can also be found in VERA PI's guide to Cours Saleya.

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