Drinking Nice
Three Bars to Visit in the South of France
Nice’s burgeoning cocktail culture might surprise those familiar with its long history as a piping-hot retirement destination. But all it takes is a quick Google search and a little footwork to find a few places changing the way the second-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast drinks.
Nice is bursting with bars built for tourists. In fact, running almost the entirety of the Quai des États Unis is an artery of boisterous, clamoring bars and restaurants catering to those seeking to sip hyper-colored cocktails served in bulbous chalices while gazing into the hypnotic azurean sea. But the side streets of this sun-drenched seaside town offer a selection of more refined flavors that chart a new course for the region’s cocktail scene.
Bar Povera
Considered a pillar in the French bartending landscape, Maxime Potfer opened Bar Povera to not only showcase his vertiginous mixology expertise, but also the network of regional ingredients provided by a trusted ecosystem of talented vendors.
“I want to help our guests create a relationship to good things,” he says, straddling a chair in the corner of the bar where we’re sitting. The walls around us are charmingly unfinished and garnished with Picasso prints that reflect shimmering candlelight and the glow of a setting sun, washing the entire space in golden tones. “Before COVID, there were other attempts to create an elevated cocktail experience, but they didn’t have any windows and felt too geeky for the average clientele at the time.” Povera, on the other hand, welcomes floods of natural light and disguises its geekiness in the concept of Cucina Povera, which translates to “kitchen of the poor,” an Italian culinary philosophy that values resourcefulness and an adherence to a rigorous no-waste policy.
“I recently purchased 23 kilos of tomatoes from a friend of mine who was disappointed in the quality of her harvest,” Potfer explains. “But I found them to be perfect for making my mother’s tomato chutney recipe, which we use in our sandwiches and is a key component in the Lavoisier.” Povera’s intense focus on quality ingredients grown locally means cocktail recipes don’t begin with the spirit; instead, Potfer and his team build layers of flavor that start at the farmer’s market. “We find quite a bit of inspiration in the fruits and vegetables at our market and build on that,” Maxime explains. The result is a menu of beverages (including a selection of exquisite non-alcoholic options) that center the season’s bounty, leaving the spirit to serve as a glorious accomplice.
The food menu follows the same practice: the ricotta comes from directly next door; the pompes à l’huile (olive oil brioche) used for their weighty and spirit-absorbing bar snacks are just a six-minute walk away, and so on. The music, however, is shipped straight from the boroughs of 1990s/early 2000s NYC: Wu Tang Clan, Craig Mack, and A Tribe Called Quest all throb nostalgically from a well-appointed sound system.
When it comes to outstanding cocktails, a comfortable atmosphere, and warm hospitality, Povera delivers.
Bar Povera: 18 Rue Emmanuel Philibert, 06300 Nice, France
Vibes
If you were to take the coolest early-90s basement you’ve ever seen (sans carpet), throw in a couple of wildly talented bartenders, and an eccentric playlist oozing from first-class hi-fi: You’ve got Vibes. With a triumvirate of hospitality specialists at its helm, Vibes offers guests everyday comfort and elegant flavor profiles in equal parts. Manon Vieules, Yoann Tarditi, and Bryan Gaillard created Vibes to be a place to “celebrate the legacy and the lifestyle of the French Riviera.”
“The bar stands on three pillars,” explains Vieules. “Cocktails, hospitality, and music.” It doesn’t sound all that revolutionary on its surface, but in practice, it makes total sense. Having worked in some of London’s most prestigious hotels, Vieules’ primary role at Vibes is choreographing and delivering decadent hospitality. Ashtrays are cleaned out after a single use, and frostless glassware gets replaced with a freezer-cold version mid-drink to keep things nice and chilled. Every detail is painstakingly attended to, without being stifling. Tarditi shaped his skill at legendary London cocktail bar Satan’s Whiskers, which, in any given year, you can find bouncing around the tops of some of the industry’s most respected “Best Of” lists. (Satan’s Whiskers just earned “Best International Cocktail Bar” at last week’s Spirited Awards.) And like Satan’s Whiskers, Vibes, too, changes its menu daily. Gaillard’s audiophilic tendencies are on full, binaural display as Vibes’ third co-founder and mood-maker. Formerly of London’s Brilliant Corners and Mu, Gaillard’s fastidious ear and deep appreciation for top-quality equipment make the music accompanying your cocktails far more than a simple playlist - it becomes a soundtrack for your visit. (I encourage you to check out the brief yet thoroughly informative Instagram post they made about acoustics.)
Together, these three owners, the pillars they represent, and the bar they’ve built are fortifying the drinking culture with casual luxury, compelling cocktails, and an easy, welcoming aesthetic (which includes a dizzying array of photography featuring famous American musicians, a ‘family tree’ of hip-hop, and a delightfully retro bathroom outfitted with a full-sized arcade machine). Behind the bar for our visit stood the talented Paul Pierrard, who we kept shaking, stirring, and throwing as long as we could on our final day of vacation. Paul is an inspired mixologist who, at the time, had just returned from a cocktail competition. “Whatever someone does for work, it should make them happy,” Pierrard shares while briskly stirring a martini. “Bartending makes me happy, and it allows me to share what I’ve learned from the bars I’ve worked in and the countries where I’ve lived.” What Paul brings to Vibes, along with the owners and other colleagues, is a passion for well-crafted things and the expertise to make them. What more could you want in a bar?
Vibes Bar: 22 Rue François Guisol, 06300 Nice, France
Gustave (Monte Carlo)
A 20-minute train ride from Nice to Monte Carlo and an even shorter walk to the Square Beaumarchais will bring you to the steps of The Hotel Hermitage. Tucked in the back side of this historic hotel is Monte Carlo’s newest extravagance: Gustave. Named after famed French engineer Gustave Eiffel, Gustave is a study in opulence, precision, and French history. The concept, which blends vintage spirits with modern techniques, comes from the mind of Julien Lecharpentier, a highly decorated mixologist and Gustave’s head bartender.
The aesthetic modernizes France’s Belle Époque, an era of cultural, creative, scientific, and technological advancements that lasted from the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1871) to the beginning of World War I (1914). The belly of the bar is cradled in a sensually lit, rose-gold-colored jewel box where you’ll find fantastically trained bartenders like Clément Salnitro detailing cocktails as if they were Lamborghinis.
There are no wasted movements at a bar like Gustave. Under the watchful eye of team leads and often Lecharpentier himself, it becomes immediately clear here that if it’s not perfect, it’s not right, which, in a perversely wealthy location like Monte Carlo, might not be a surprise. But there’s an easiness to the perfection here: it’s not stuffy; it’s studied. In place of ego, total elegance. The cocktails eschew the typical showiness one might expect from a European hotel bar for a more subtle, technique-driven approach to building cocktails.
The menu is divided into flavor profiles for easy navigation and a variety of palates, and almost every cocktail includes wine. The Gin-based Parsley Smash was a delicious accompaniment to a break from the sun, made with peach wine, absinthe, parsley syrup, and a trace of parsley oil that leaves a delicate slick on the lips at the finish. The fresh and verdant Vin du Pois combines pea shoot distillate, Riesling, and a lush Granny Smith apple and sugar snow pea cordial. And the Jam Sazerac combines Macallan 12, Chamberyzette, strawberry jam, terragon distillate, and raspberry water, topped with a lilypad of lime peel, undulates across the palate from boozy to fruity and back again. Richly strawberried and a total knockout.
Gustave might be a bit of a splurge, but it is a worthy one, indeed. This is the place to go when you want to feel like a million bucks.
Gustave: Square Beaumarchais, 98000 Monte Carlo, Principality of Monaco
Happy traveling and happy drinking!