Where to drink Champagne in Nice?
Nice is made for drinking something cold with a view. Champagne fits naturally into the city’s rhythm, whether that means a glass during an afternoon along the Promenade des Anglais, an aperitif in the Old Town or a bottle with dinner.
The city has a strong food and wine culture, with restaurants, wine bars, hotels and terraces spread from the Vieux Nice to the seafront and beyond. Champagne is easy to combine with the things Nice does best – long lunches, seafood, Mediterranean food and evenings that don’t need to end early.
A good Champagne day in Nice doesn’t need much planning. Start in the Old Town, where narrow streets and small squares are full of cafés, restaurants and bars. From there, make your way towards the sea and the Promenade des Anglais for a walk along the Mediterranean.
If you want to stay closer to the water, the area around the Promenade is an obvious choice for an afternoon glass or an aperitif. For dinner, look towards the Old Town and the surrounding streets for places where Champagne can be paired with the local cuisine.
Nice also has its own food traditions worth knowing about. Socca, a thin savoury pancake made from chickpea flour, is one of the city’s best-known specialities. You’ll also come across Salade Niçoise, petits farcis and pissaladière, all closely connected to the cuisine of Nice and the wider Côte d’Azur.
And if you’re staying longer, Nice makes a good base for exploring the coast. Antibes, Cannes, Menton and Monaco are all within easy reach, so you can combine a stay in Nice with Champagne stops elsewhere on the Riviera.
Good to know
Nice is at its most appealing when you leave enough time for the day to unfold. A morning around the Old Town, a walk by the sea, an afternoon glass and a long dinner is a perfectly good reason to stay another night.
For something particularly local, try Bellet wine. The small Bellet appellation sits in the hills just outside Nice and is one of France’s rare urban wine regions. It produces white, rosé and red wines, with local varieties including Rolle, Braquet and Folle Noire. It’s a fun bottle to look for if you want to taste something that genuinely belongs to Nice.
