TOP TABLES ❘ À LA CARTE


known as the Anantara Plaza, after a top-to- bottom renovation designed to appeal to style- driven, free-spending Instagrammers as much as the city’s traditional clientele of middle-aged European sun-seekers, the hotel is crowned with a sixth-floor roof-top bar and restaurant that lets you gape at the Med while scarfing down a seriously good cocktail – do not miss brilliant Italian bartender Marco Stella’s superb socca sour, an ode to the famous Niçoise street food of chickpea flour crêpes, which goes down a treat at the bar before migrating to a meal at Seen, the adjacent restaurant.


Seen is run by Portuguese chef Olivier da


Costa’s Olivier restaurant group, a growing chain with tables in Portugal, Brazil, France, Thailand and the UK. After opening Seen restaurants in São Paulo, Lisbon, Bangkok and Ko Samui, Nice was chosen as the fifth location for this shrewdly conceived international comfort-food concept. “People come here as much to have a good time as a good meal,” our waiter told us the night we dined here, adding: “What’s great is that here you get both.” Lounge music, low lighting and a good-looking service staff set the mood, and the eclectic menu caters to an impressive declension of gastronomic self-indulgence.


Start off with fish tacos, escargots, octopus carpaccio or foie gras terrine with cocoa or chose from a terrific menu of sushi, sashimi, makis and other Japanese treats. The sushi chefs are so good, you might be tempted to make a meal of their craft, and you could if you wanted to, but


spaghetti with lobster and Wagyu beef with chimichurri sauce are other temptations. For our part, we ate our own weight in the sushi chef’s beautifully crafted rolls and sashimi, and then shared a Wagyu steak, which was wonderfully succulent, with wilted spinach and perfect frites. Our Château de Bellet white from Nice’s very own vineyards was a perfect choice to accompany this meal, which we concluded with a shared piece of yuzu cheesecake. Seen is a lot of fun, and that’s precisely the point.  Seen, 12 Avenue de Verdun, Nice, Tel. (33) 04 93 16 75 75, average à la carte €70. www.anantara.com/ plaza-nice


NONOS ET COMESTIBLES PAR PAUL PAIRET, PARIS


Having a restaurant with two or three Michelin stars has long been part of the boilerplate for Paris Palace hotels, as the most exclusive five-star hotels in Paris are known. But recently this looks set to be changing. Notably, chef Alain Ducasse was sent packing from his three-star eponymous table at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée and replaced by Jean Imbert, a much younger chef with a career as much piloted by social media as his kitchen skills. More recently, L’Espadon, the gastronomic restaurant at the Ritz, has been closed for more than a year while a young female chef settles into the hotel’s kitchens. What many Paris hotel general managers seem to have concluded is that post-Covid, everyone wants a good time. So at the Hôtel de Crillon, ❯❯


Jun/Jul 2023 FRANCE TODAY ❘ 61


This page: A good time and a good meal go hand in hand at the Anantara Plaza in Nice


IMAGES @ CHÂTEAU DE COLLIAS, ANANTARA PLAZA


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