Best socca in Nice: Chez Pipo, Chez Thérésa and Chez Marie-Thé compared, with their days, hours and prices and the Cours Saleya rule

💡 The Short Version: Socca is a chickpea pancake, and three counters sell it. Chez Pipo (13 rue Bavastro) is open Wednesday to Sunday, 11:30 to 14:30 and 17:30 to 22:00, with no reservations. Chez Thérésa (28 rue Droite) is open Tuesday to Sunday, 09:30 to 15:00, and sells a slice for €3.50. Chez Marie-Thé has a stand on the Cours Saleya, Wednesday to Sunday mornings to 13:30, with a slice at €3.50. None sells socca on a Monday. In English searches “socca” also means a small football game; this page is about the pancake. Or book a tour: the No Diet Club tastingsad are from €69 and include socca (GetYourGuide).

What it is

Socca is a thin, large pancake of chickpea flour and olive oil, baked on a big round plate of tinned copper in a bread oven. It comes out golden and slightly burnt in places, and it is eaten hot, with pepper, without cutlery. A plate is cut into six to eight pieces. The same dish is farinata in Liguria and cade in Toulon. The three counters below cook it in Nice’s old town and at its market, and where to eat in Nice counts how many of 27 lists name each.

Slices of socca on paper beside a pepper shaker, as a market vendor in the old town serves them. Photo: Schellack, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

The counters, compared

The counters

A socca stall among the market stalls on the Cours Saleya, seen from a café table. Photo: Arnaud 25, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Chez Pipo

13 rue Bavastro, near the port · Wednesday to Sunday 11:30 to 14:30 and 17:30 to 22:00 · no reservations · chezpipo.fr

The sit-down socca restaurant, with a tradition its operator puts at close to 100 years. The socca is the one dish the site calls the undisputed star, and it describes it as gluten-free. Order it with the spreads, which are olive tapenade, anchovy cream, a Provençal vegetable mix or sun-dried tomato on toasted bread, then a slice of pissaladière or a pizza. The tourist office lists cards, American Express and cash. It is closed on Monday and Tuesday.

Chez Thérésa

28 rue Droite, old town · Tuesday to Sunday 09:30 to 15:00, closed Monday · no reservations · chez-theresa.fr

A counter in the old town since 1925. At the rue Droite shop the socca bakes in a wood-fired oven that the tourist office dates to 1867, on a copper plate blackened by use. At the Cours Saleya market, on Tuesday to Sunday mornings, a cargo tricycle brings it hot to the stand. The operator’s price list gives a slice of socca at €3.50, a slice of pissaladière or pizza at €3.50, a pan bagnat at €6.00, a slice of Swiss-chard pie at €4.00, a trouchia (a Swiss-chard omelette without pastry) at €3.50 and La Ronde, a large socca for two, at €7.00. The French Riviera Pass includes a free slice at the rue Droite shop: is the pass worth it? First come, first served.

Chez Marie-Thé

Place Charles Félix, Cours Saleya · Wednesday to Sunday 09:30 to 13:30, closed Monday and Tuesday · chezmariethe.com

A stand on the market, run by a Niçoise whose site says she has been there for a long time and has changed little. The site prices a slice of socca at €3.50, a pan bagnat at €5.90 and a slice of pissaladière at €2.50, and says you eat standing, on the move. The tourist office lists cash and cheques. It is a morning stop between the flower stalls and the fish market: the Cours Saleya market has the days, and unlike Chez Thérésa’s stand it is closed on a Tuesday.

How to order

• Go early on the market. Chez Marie-Thé’s stand shuts at 13:30, and on Monday the square holds the antiques market instead.
• Eat it hot. The socca is at its best straight from the plate, with pepper.
• Add a second dish. Pissaladière, pan bagnat and Swiss-chard pie are on the same counters: where to eat in Nice names what each dish is.
• Lou Balico lists socca among its dishes, according to the tourist office.
• Chez René Socca and Lou Pilha Leva are each named by 5 of the 27 publishers counted for where to eat in Nice.

A cook lifting hot socca from its round baking plate in Nice. Photo: Myrabella, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Socca on a tour

A food tour stops for socca with the other Niçois specialities, and the tastings are the way to try several dishes without ordering a plate of each. No Diet Clubad is from €69 for 3 hours and lists pan bagnat, socca, pissaladière, farcis, sweet chard pie, homemade ice cream and macarons. Nice food tours compares the others.

Plan the rest

The old town is where two of the counters are, and 3 days in Nice puts a socca lunch on the first morning. What to book before you go to Nice has the closed days of every sight.