Gastronomie à la Cote d'Azur

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy for both of us, with a lot of travelling… So we were both quite happy to have a quiet weekend to look forward to for a change. The perfect occasion for a bit of socializing and exploring local cuisine ;)

I started things with a nice lunch with Petri, my Finnish friend who works in Sophia-Antipolis. We decided upon a lunch in a very nice restaurant in Biot, called Les Terraillers. It’s a very classy joint, with a traditional and cozy interior, and a very nice terrace – they also have 1 well-deserved Michelin Star. We went there a few months ago with my parents. This time I was keen to try out the terrace, the weather being more suited for it.

We were not disappointed. Their 39 euro menu is pretty good value for money considering it consists of a starter, main course, dessert, as much of their excellent bread as you want, and some “amuse-bouches” between the main courses as well. And the service is excellent as well – I can thoroughly recommend this place!

For the evening, we headed to meet up with Jean-Luc, his wife Essi, and their kids. Jean-Luc is a French colleague of mine, who spent 6 months working with me here on the Cote d’Azur, but who now works in Helsinki.

Both he and his wife are both into triathlons and the Iron Man competitions, which was the reason for their visit this time (the Nice Ironman was taking place on Sunday, and Essi was taking part). We are not quite as active as them when it comes to sport, so we decided to just meet up for dinner ;-). We chose Villa d’Este, a pretty decent “tourist trap” on Rue Massena (all the restaurants are tourist traps there, so you just have to pick the smallest evil), Rue Massena being well-located and pretty children-friendly.

Villa d’Este is pretty good in that they have decent-sized portions, and even some quite unusual and interesting dishes. And I guess you can’t really go wrong with Italian. We weren’t disappointed, the food was pretty good. We finished off the soiree with a very nice ice cream across the road from the restaurant at Amorino.

The next day, we were meeting up to celebrate Ismael’s 30th birthday (he’d had his real party the weekend before, which we couldn’t make it for unfortunately since we were in Italy, celebrating Mathilde’s birthday!). We eventually settled on lunch at one of the classier hotels in Nice, called Boscolo Plaza. Apparently they have a very nice terrace, with some nice views, so… Spot on, the terrace is very nice, and so are the views. The terrace has a nice view both towards the sea, and the old town. The food isn’t bad at all, either, and surprisingly doesn’t break the bank (considering the location of the place). Naim, Ismael and Sarah all made it – unfortunately Youcef and Ouarda couldn’t make it this time.

For the evening, the plan was to meet up with Marie and JayJay. Great to see JayJay again (the last time was during our wonderful holiday in Mexico and the US, where he did a sterling job showing us the charms of Baja California) – who’s here for the summer (looking forwards to doing a bit of diving with him). We kicked off the soiree with a walk around the old town, and an aperitif near Place Rossetti – Mojito time! (a bit disappointing, the Mojito, I have to say, especially since we were supposedly in some sort of Latino bar/café). After that, we headed to Bistro Fromagier for dinner, and that place, my friends, was a real revelation. Now, I’m not exactly a cheese fanatic, although I have acquired a taste for them since I’ve moved to France. But this place is brilliant.

The place is actually a bit like a wine bar, but they also serve excellent food – especially cheese (obviously!). We really had a great time food-wise (and otherwise too, don’t get me wrong!), and the wines were quite unusual too. They have quite an odd selection of not very well-known wines, often organic ones. I have to say I’ve had better wines, the best way to describe the ones we had would be “different”, I suppose (I have to come up with words like that since I’m not what you would call a wine connoisseur).

An excellent way to end a very nice day in Nice indeed!