The table
Flaveur
Nice · Côte d'Azur
A two-star dining room off Place Masséna, where brothers Gaël and Mickaël Tourteaux cook the produce of the Riviera coast and its hills, then carry it off course with spices gathered on their travels. A small room, a dozen or so covers.
Creative cooking rooted in the Mediterranean: fish and seafood landed along the coast, vegetables from the hills behind Nice, worked with the restraint the two-star level asks for. Where it departs from its neighbours is the spicing. The Tourteaux brothers season Riviera produce with cardamom, pepper and other spices carried back from trips to India and further east, so a local red mullet or a langoustine arrives tasting of two places at once. The format is a tasting menu that changes with the market, served in a room of a dozen or so covers, which keeps the kitchen close to every plate. Service is attentive without ceremony, run by one brother while the other cooks.
It has held two Michelin stars since 2018, a first since 2011, and it runs on the brothers' own idea rather than a borrowed one. Mickaël in the kitchen and Gaël on the floor built the place themselves and kept it personal as it climbed, which is rarer at this level than it should be. For a city better known to visitors for its beaches than its tables, Flaveur is the argument that Nice can hold a kitchen of real ambition on its own terms.
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