Peppino — Restaurant in Nice

Peppino is a lovely, exciting Italian trattoria in Old Nice with outstanding food and excellent service.

Booking is an absolute must and even at the end of the low-season, people were turned away for not having bookings. Perhaps a late dinner may be doable as a walk-in but it's not worth the gamble.

The restaurant itself is a lovely place to be; light and airy but still cosy and typical of the local French bistros and the tables are small and very close which provide for a good atmosphere with the walls adorned with all different types of Italian paraphernalia.

As with most restaurants in Nice, the menu is relatively small, approximately 4-5 dishes each for starter, main, and dessert but all done to an excellent standard.

We chose the antipasti for starters, lasagne and a beef stew for main, and tiramisu and pistachio torte for dessert.

To begin the drinks ordered were a campari spritz and Hugo. As a keen home-mixologist, the drinks were ok. Generous portions of alcohol but not particularly well balanced as a result and not enough ice. However the staff were happy to rectify this on request. Still, we were pleased with both cocktails but they weren't up to the very high standard of the rest of the meal.

The starter was a plate of antipasti with 2 cheeses, and 3 meats with bread served alongside. This was excellent. The cheeses delicious and the meats were outstanding. A passion of mine is Italian food and Neapolitan pizza and as a result I seek to find high quality Italian products, and the meats served at Peppino surpassed that. The platter was a good size, and more than adequate for sharing.

The mains followed which were accompanied by a glass of recommended house red which was brilliant. The lasagne was well portioned and served with a green salad which was beautifully dressed. The lasagne was everything you'd be expect from an excellent, authentic, homemade lasagne, though I would've liked it to be a bit richer. The beef stew made up for this and was equally good, well portioned, and absolutely delicious.

To end the meal, we ordered a tiramisu and a pistachio chocolate tart. The tiramisu was delicious and a good portion size, however it was a bit dry and not the best example of a tiramisu; the savoiardi had not been soaked enough and resulted in them being too 'cake-like'.

However the pistachio tarte was the best dessert we had in all of our meals in Nice. A layer of biscuit crumb, with chocolate ganache, and then pistachio cream. Each layer was as exquisite as the last and a good portion size too. The dessert was so good, we asked how it was made and the chef obliged us with the recipe. It was so good in fact, that we tried to order it to takeaway the next day but the menu had changed.

Now comes to the only gripe of the meal; owing to how busy the restaurant was we were given our bill without requesting it and told that other patrons were waiting for a table. From start to finish we had been in the restaurant 1hour 45mins so we felt rushed out, not even having been offered coffee or digestif. As it was, we were ready to leave but this was slightly disappointing, as the service up to then had been outstanding.

Nonetheless the whole meal was excellent and I would wholeheartedly recommend Peppino.

Setting - 5/5 Service 4/5 (Point lost for rushing) Starter 5/5 Main...

My friends and I found this place online and saw the rave reviews and decided we should have dinner here one time. We placed a reservation personally but came to dinner with one more person than we originally said. They were very accommodating and tried to move things around and got us seated in 10 minutes.

The owner and people working there are so warm and I liked the personal touches of the handwritten blackboard menu. The reviews mentioning their smiles are very true. The place is very home-y and it looked like they had regulars who knew them very well.

He explained all the dishes to us, and the service was excellent. We were so impressed with the food that we immediately placed another reservation for a day in the same week.

He remembered me by name the next time and welcomed us. The entrees and desserts seem to rotate frequently and we got to try new dishes when we returned two days later for our next reservation. I would 100% come back again if I’m in Nice and I definitely recommend going by or calling to reserve your table beforehand, they’re very popular and fill up...

Just had dinner at Peppino tonight when they opened at 6PM. Got a table early in all likelihood before all their later reservations came in. Cute place but a very limited menu. My girlfriend got the Lasagna and I got the "something beef with veggies and potatoes in a red wine sauce. The food was ok....my girlfriend liked her Lasagna, but not overwhelmed by any means. My dish was just like "beef stew" with potatoes and I'll assume the veggies were pureed because I never saw any of them. It was however a damn good beef stew even though the portion size was underwhelming.

The service not very good, young kid, asked for 2nd glass of wine which never came. No bread ever offered but thank God I did ask for table water and did receive it.

Food came quick and we were all pretty much done by 6:45PM!! By that time we had lost interest and decided to look elsewhere for a good time. Based on all the good reviews we were very disappointed. Can't imagine this to be typical based upon previous reviews. Hope it works better for you then...