Chez Davia

Chez Davia Is the Smartest Bet for Niçoise Cooking in Nice Right Now

If you want to eat the food this city is actually built on, without paying fine-dining prices, Chez Davia on Rue Grimaldi is the clearest answer in Nice. Chef Pierre Altobelli runs a tight, confident operation: two consecutive Michelin Bib Gourmands (2024 and 2025) plus an Opinionated About Dining Casual Europe listing in 2025 confirm that the quality here is consistent and independently verified. At a €€ price point, this is one of the better-value decisions you can make on the Côte d'Azur.

What You're Walking Into

Chez Davia is a neighbourhood restaurant in the full French sense. The room is compact and unfussy, the kind of space where the cooking is the point and the décor doesn't try to distract you from it. What you see when you walk in sets the tone immediately: a small, well-used dining room where tables are close and the atmosphere is generated by the food and the people eating it, not by ambient design choices. This is not a place that has invested in Instagram backdrops. It has invested in the plate.

The address, 11bis Rue Grimaldi, puts you in central Nice, close enough to the old town and the seafront to make it a logical anchor for a half-day in the city. It is a practical choice as much as a gastronomic one. For a fuller picture of where Chez Davia sits within the city's dining options, the Pearl Nice restaurants guide covers the range from casual to destination-level.

Seasonal Cooking: Why Timing Your Visit Matters

Niçoise cuisine is one of the most seasonally anchored traditions in France. The cooking draws directly from what the market at Cours Saleya supplies: courgette flowers and fresh farinata in summer, salt cod and slow-braised meats as the weather cools, truffles and root vegetables through winter. A kitchen operating in this tradition doesn't run static menus. What Altobelli puts on the plate in July looks materially different from what he is cooking in November, and that gap is worth planning around.

The practical implication: if you are visiting Nice in summer, you are eating at the peak of the vegetable season. Dishes built around fresh tomatoes, herbs from the arrière-pays, and the courgette flowers that appear across Niçoise menus for a narrow window are at their most compelling between June and September. Come in autumn and the menu pivots toward richer preparations. Neither window is wrong, but they offer different versions of the same kitchen. If you have a choice of travel dates, summer through early autumn is when Niçoise cuisine is at its most expressive at this price level.

This seasonal logic also makes Chez Davia a different proposition from the €€€€ restaurants in the city. Places like Flaveur or L'Aromate apply contemporary technique to seasonal produce across longer tasting menus. Chez Davia stays closer to the source: fewer interventions, more direct regional expression, a fraction of the price.

How It Reads Against the Nice Restaurant Field

The Bib Gourmand is a useful calibration tool here. Michelin awards it specifically for good food at moderate prices. Two consecutive years of recognition, combined with the OAD Casual Europe listing, puts Chez Davia in a small group of Nice restaurants that have attracted serious critical attention outside the traditional fine-dining tier. Among the city's modern French options, Les Agitateurs and ONICE work in different registers entirely. Le Chantecler sits at the formal end of the spectrum. Chez Davia occupies the space where regional identity and daily market cooking intersect, which is exactly what a lot of visitors to Nice are actually looking for without always knowing where to find it.

For context on how the broader French cooking tradition connects to what is happening in a kitchen like this one, the distance from Nice to benchmark French restaurants matters. Mirazur in Menton is the obvious regional reference point at the three-Michelin-star level. Further afield, Arpège in Paris and Troisgros in Ouches define what the leading of the French canon looks like. Chez Davia is not competing with those rooms, nor should it. It is competing with the idea that you can eat well in Nice without spending €100 per head, and on that question the answer is yes.

Who Should Book

Chez Davia works well for food-focused travellers who want to eat something rooted in the place rather than something that could exist anywhere. It works for solo diners, pairs, and small groups. It is not the choice for a formal celebration dinner. The 4.1 Google rating across 1,636 reviews suggests broadly positive reception but is not the primary signal here: the Michelin and OAD recognitions carry more weight when assessing kitchen quality. Booking difficulty is low, which means this is one of those situations where you don't need to plan two weeks ahead, but you should still reserve a table rather than turn up speculatively.

If your trip also involves exploring beyond restaurants, the Pearl Nice hotels guide, bars guide, and experiences guide cover the rest of the picture.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What should I wear to Chez Davia? Smart casual is the right call. This is a neighbourhood restaurant in central Nice at a €€ price point, not a formal dining room. Clean, comfortable clothes are fine. You don't need to dress up, but turning up in beach clothes from the Promenade would be out of place. Think of it as the standard for a good French bistro.
• Is Chez Davia good for solo dining? Yes. A compact dining room in a Niçoise bistro format is one of the more comfortable settings for eating alone in France. The style of service at this level tends to be attentive without being performative, which suits solo diners well. At €€ pricing, you can eat properly without the commitment of a tasting menu. If solo dining in a livelier environment appeals, the central Nice location means there are options nearby in the Pearl Nice bars guide for before or after.
• What should a first-timer know about Chez Davia? Go in knowing this is regional Niçoise cooking, not a broad French bistro menu. The kitchen draws on local and seasonal produce, so what's available shifts through the year. Two consecutive Michelin Bib Gourmands and an OAD Casual Europe listing tell you the quality is real and consistent. At €€, first-timers often underestimate how good the food can be at this price. Order what reads as most local on the menu that day.
• Is the tasting menu worth it at Chez Davia? No specific tasting menu is confirmed in the available data for Chez Davia. This is most likely an à la carte or set menu operation in the French bistro format, which at €€ pricing is already good value given the Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition. If a structured multi-course tasting experience is what you're after, Flaveur or L'Aromate are the €€€€ tier options in Nice with dedicated tasting formats.
• Is Chez Davia good for a special occasion? It depends on what kind of occasion. If you want to mark something meaningful with food that is genuinely good and rooted in the city you're visiting, yes. If you need formal service, a long wine list, and an impressive room, this is not that restaurant. For a milestone dinner with more ceremony, Le Chantecler or one of the €€€€ options in Nice would be more appropriate.
• Is Chez Davia worth the price? At €€, it is one of the clearest yes answers in Nice. Two Michelin Bib Gourmands and an OAD Casual Europe listing at this price tier is not common. You are getting kitchen quality that has been independently verified by two separate credible sources, at a price where the risk is low. The 4.1 Google score across 1,636 reviews adds volume to that confidence. Compared to spending €€€€ at JAN or Pure & V, this is a fraction of the outlay for a different but genuinely satisfying version of eating well in Nice.