Coffee in Nice

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Nice has developed one of the most vibrant specialty coffee scenes on the French Riviera. Once dominated by the traditional Italian-style espresso that crossed the border with Piedmontese settlers — strong, short, and taken standing at a zinc counter — the city now hosts a constellation of third-wave coffee shops run by passionate baristas who source single-origin beans, roast in-house, and pour with genuine craft. The old guard and the new coexist comfortably: a century-old roaster in Vieux-Nice still scents the same alley it has occupied since 1925, while a micro-roastery opened just three years ago is already earning regional recognition. Whether you arrive as a seasoned specialty-coffee devotee or simply as someone who wants more than a café serré with your croissant, Nice rewards exploration.

This page covers the best specialty coffee cafés in the city, organised by ranking, followed by a section on where to buy beans and equipment. A brief glossary of brewing methods appears at the bottom for those new to third-wave terminology.

Rankings: Specialty Coffee Cafés

The ranking below weighs four criteria: coffee quality (sourcing, roasting, extraction), barista skill and menu depth, atmosphere and setting, and value for money. Google ratings and review counts are noted as a reference, but the editorial ranking is independent of aggregated scores.

Rank	Café	Neighbourhood	Google Rating	Specialty Focus
1	La Claque Café	Vieux-Nice	★ 4.9 (646)	Multi-origin, pour-over, batch brew
2	Maison Karlie	Centre-Ville	★ 4.8 (412)	In-house micro-roastery, espresso
3	Selah Atelier	Libération	★ 5.0 (167)	Flat white, chai, floral concept store
4	HUG Café	Jean Médecin	★ 4.6 (1,292)	Third-wave, filter, wide terrace
5	Full Bloom Café	Port / Antiquaires	★ 4.7 (400)	Vegan, dog-friendly, concept store
6	HOBO Coffee	Vieux-Nice	★ 4.5 (2,239)	Brunch & bar crossover, long hours
7	Atelier Alfred	Libération	★ 4.9 (163)	Community café, volunteer-run, garden
Google ratings reflect total review volume and sentiment but do not measure specialty coffee quality alone. Selah Atelier's perfect 5.0 score is based on 167 reviews — impressive for a young café, though a smaller sample than HOBO's 2,200+. The editorial ranking above accounts for bean sourcing, extraction technique, and the overall coffee-forward identity of each venue.

Specialty Coffee Cafés

La Claque Café

#1 — The benchmark for specialty coffee in Nice

La Claque — the name is French slang for a pleasant shock — is exactly what it promises. Tucked into a narrow lane just off the Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate in Vieux-Nice, this small barista collective has positioned itself as the city's most serious coffee address. The beans rotate continuously from roasters across France and beyond (reviewers note French and Korean origins among recent offerings), and the team brews them across multiple methods: espresso, batch brew, V60 pour-over, and Chemex. The extraction on both the batch and espresso is consistently praised for complexity and balance — no bitterness, full body, lingering finish.

The interior is tiny and seating is limited, making it less suited to laptop work; its true value lies in slowing down, talking to the baristas about what's on the grinder, and letting them guide the choice. Creative seasonal specials — a rosemary latte, an ube latte — round out the menu alongside pastries and baked goods. Beans, coffee gear, and small-batch accessories are sold in-store.

La Claque operates also as an SCA-affiliated training space, offering professional barista workshops and competitions — an indicator of the depth of knowledge behind the counter.

Detail	Info
Address	8 rue du Pont Vieux, 06300 Nice
Phone	+33 6 58 87 88 45
Website	laclaquecafe.com
Instagram	@laclaquecafe
Hours	Daily 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM
Tram	Line 1, Cathédrale-Vieille-Ville
Price range	€1 – €6
Beans for sale	Yes
Gear for sale	Yes
La Claque also runs a nomadic “café nomade” counter for events; follow their Instagram for dates and locations.

Maison Karlie

#2 — Nice's only in-house micro-roastery with a café-deli hybrid

Maison Karlie is the most complete coffee operation in Nice: owner-roaster Elodie (Karlie) sources green beans, roasts them on-site in her atelier on rue Pastorelli, and serves the results as espresso, cappuccino, slow-filter, and iced coffee — all within the same elegant, compact space. The decor leans contemporary with a refined Asian aesthetic: a beautiful bar counter, spare furniture, and a calm palette that signals seriousness without pretension.

The food program matches the coffee ambition. Fresh madeleines and financiers emerge from the oven daily, and the lunch menu features a standout pastrami sandwich on challah bread with honey mustard and house-made pickles. A vegetarian alternative is always available. Reviewers consistently describe it as one of Nice's top three specialty addresses, with particular praise for the flat white (well-calibrated milk work, minimal bitterness) and the iced latte over Ethiopian beans.

Beans are sold by the bag for home brewing, and staff are generous with sourcing information.

Detail	Info
Address	36 rue Pastorelli, 06000 Nice
Phone	+33 6 84 05 42 15
Website	maisonkarlie.com
Instagram	@maison_karlie_
Hours	Tue–Sat 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM; closed Mon & Sun
Price range	€2 – €8
Beans for sale	Yes (own roast)
In-house roasting	Yes

Selah Atelier

#3 — The dried-flowers café: the most beautiful coffee space in Nice

Selah Atelier occupies a singular niche in Nice's café landscape. Half specialty coffee shop, half dried-flower art boutique, it fills a calm space on rue de Dijon in the Libération quarter with the combined scents of fresh coffee and preserved botanicals. The atmosphere is genuinely unlike any other café in the city: a curated, almost gallery-like interior where bunches of dried florals hang from the ceiling alongside handmade arrangements for sale, while a skilled barista works the machine on one side.

The coffee is outstanding. The flat white draws particular acclaim — described by one regular visitor as among the best in Nice — and the chai is reportedly among the finest in the region: properly spiced, not a powder concentrate, balanced with gentle sweetness. Plant-based milks (oat, soya, almond) are standard. Homemade cakes change with the season. Creative workshops — floral arrangement, artistic sessions — take place on-site and can be booked in advance.

Despite its perfection score and critical praise, Selah remains unhurried and unassuming; the owners run it out of genuine passion rather than social media ambition. It attracts a loyal clientele of freelancers, students, and neighbourhood regulars.

Detail	Info
Address	23 rue de Dijon, 06000 Nice
Phone	+33 6 45 01 86 89
Website	selah-atelier.com
Instagram	@selah_atelier
Hours	Tue–Sat 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM; closed Mon & Sun
Tram	Line 1, Libération
Price range	€2.50 – €5.80
Workshops	Yes (floral art, from €65)

HUG Café

#4 — The most welcoming terrace in the city centre

HUG Café operates as the coffee shop annex of Hôtel du Centre, but functions as a fully independent specialty venue with its own identity, barista team, and sourcing philosophy. The café sits at the corner of rue de Suisse and avenue Jean Médecin, with a generous sunny terrace facing the Basilique Notre-Dame de Nice — one of the best people-watching perches in the commercial centre of the city.

Coffee is sourced from La Torref de Fersen, an artisan roaster in Antibes, and served as flat white, cortado, Chemex filter, Origami pour-over, and various espresso-based drinks. A signature house invention — the salty maple latte — is one of the more sought-after items on the menu. The food program is organic and largely plant-friendly, with muffins, cookies, quiches, and seasonal cakes all made in-house.

Beans from La Torref de Fersen are available to purchase, and the baristas are happy to advise on home brewing. The café opens at 7:30 AM every day of the week, making it one of the earliest specialty coffee options in the city — useful for early risers and travellers heading to the train station three minutes away.

Detail	Info
Address	2 rue de Suisse, 06000 Nice
Phone	+33 6 11 20 95 66
Website	hugcafenice.com
Instagram	@hugcafenice
Hours	Daily 7:30 AM – 7:00 PM (high season until later)
Tram	Lines 1 & 2, Jean Médecin; 3 min from Nice-Ville SNCF
Price range	Filter coffee €3.90 – €5.50 / Espresso drinks €2.80 – €6.50
Beans for sale	Yes (La Torref de Fersen)
Hotel du Centre guests receive a 10% discount on all HUG Café orders.

Full Bloom Café

#5 — Specialty coffee, vegan pastries, and Nice's best dog-friendly café

Full Bloom Café occupies a calm space on rue Emmanuel Philibert, just off the Port de Nice in the Antiquaires district. Run by a passionate couple, it combines a thoughtful specialty coffee menu with a canine concept store — selling premium dog food, accessories, and even freshly baked dog treats alongside the human menu. The result is a genuinely unusual atmosphere: a sun-filled, plant-filled interior where well-behaved dogs are not just tolerated but celebrated.

Coffee quality is high. Reviewers arriving from Australia and the United States (countries with demanding specialty cultures) report consistent satisfaction with the cappuccino and the iced latte; the single-origin options reflect careful sourcing. Croissants and pastries are 100% vegan — and, unusually, convincingly so: reviewers describe the croissants as crispy and fluffy, worth seeking out early before they sell out. Kusmi teas are stocked for non-coffee drinkers.

The café also maintains a small product selection for home brewing, including beans and coffee accessories. The Thursday–Monday schedule is worth noting before planning a visit.

Detail	Info
Address	14 rue Emmanuel Philibert, 06300 Nice
Phone	+33 7 56 82 51 08
Instagram	@full_bloom_cafe
Hours	Thu–Mon 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM (Sat–Sun until 6:00 PM); closed Tue–Wed
Tram	Line 2, Port Lympia
Price range	Espresso €2 / Chai €5 / Matcha €5.50 / Pastry €4
Dog-friendly	Yes (pup cup €5.50, dog muffin €2.50)
Vegan	Fully vegan pastry menu

HOBO Coffee

#6 — The old-town all-day café with the longest hours in Nice

HOBO occupies a corner of rue Sainte-Réparate in the heart of Vieux-Nice, where the narrow lane opens just enough to fit a terrace that is nearly always full. The aesthetic is vintage and lived-in: a bar counter of steel and wood, retro cups, family photographs on the walls, and a “hygge” sensibility that rewards lingering. It opens at 8:30 AM and serves until 10:30 PM every day of the week — the most generous hours of any café on this list, and a genuine advantage when most specialty shops close by late afternoon.

HOBO's identity sits at the crossroads of a coffee shop, a brunch restaurant, and an aperitivo bar, with a menu that spans espresso drinks, granola bowls, avocado toast, croque raclette, fresh juices, cocktails, and wine. The coffee is solid — reviewers reliably praise the cortado, the cappuccino, and the chai latte — without quite reaching the single-minded extraction focus of La Claque or Maison Karlie. This is a venue for a full morning, not a surgical espresso stop.

A second HOBO address (Hobo Juicy) operates across the street at 6 rue St Réparate, focusing on fresh juices and smoothies.

Detail	Info
Address	5 bis rue Sainte-Réparate, 06300 Nice
Phone	+33 6 71 06 32 81
Website	hoboshop.fr
Instagram	@hobo_coffee_nice
Hours	Daily 8:30 AM – 10:30 PM
Price range	Moderate (€€)

Atelier Alfred

#7 — The community café with a garden, run by volunteers

Atelier Alfred is unlike anything else on this list. A community association café (café associatif) run entirely by volunteers and hosted in the premises of a Baptist church on rue Vernier, it offers affordable coffee, homemade muffins, cookies, and brownies in a deliberately time-warped interior: vintage furniture, mismatched crockery, and a shaded garden courtyard that constitutes one of the most pleasant outdoor seating areas in Nice. On summer Fridays, a light lunch inspired by world cuisine is served.

The coffee is organic and fair-trade — less a showcase of third-wave precision than an expression of ethical sourcing and community warmth. The space functions as a meeting point for workshops (artistic, creative, multilingual), and visitors report the atmosphere as genuinely welcoming, with volunteers switching to English without hesitation.

Hours are restricted and vary by day, so confirm before visiting. The limited opening times make it best suited to a mid-afternoon detour rather than a morning routine.

Detail	Info
Address	13 rue Vernier, 06000 Nice
Website	atelier-alfred.fr
Instagram	@atelieralfred
Hours	Tue, Thu, Fri 14:00–18:00 / Wed 10:00–18:00 / Sat 11:00–17:00; closed Mon & Sun
Price range	Very affordable (€)
Workshops	Yes — artistic, creative, discussion groups

Where to Buy Coffee Beans and Equipment

Cafés Indien (Brûlerie des Cafés Indien)

The oldest coffee establishment in Nice and one of the oldest continuously operating roasters on the Côte d'Azur. Founded in 1925 as the Torréfaction de la Méditerranée et du Sud-Est, the boutique was acquired by the grandfather of current owner Jean-François Torre in 1975 and renamed Cafés Indien — an allusion to the spirit of exploration and discovery that defines its sourcing philosophy. Organic coffees were introduced in 1990; since 2010, the family has doubled down on ethical sourcing and artisan methods.

Roasting takes place on a Probat roaster directly on the premises (a Bullet and an Ikawa sample roaster are also in-house), and the approach is a controlled medium roast designed to bring out the best characteristics of each origin. The result is full-bodied, aromatic, and — unlike many specialty roasters — priced modestly enough to be a neighbourhood staple rather than a luxury destination.

Origins on offer have included Costa Rica, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Colombia, Peru, Honduras, and Mexico. The shop also stocks herbal teas, chocolates, coffee equipment, and small gifts. Cafés Indien operates out of two addresses in Vieux-Nice: the main brûlerie on rue Pairolière and a second boutique on rue Sainte-Réparate. Both locations sell beans whole or freshly ground to order.

Detail	Info
Main address	35 rue Pairolière, 06300 Nice
Second address	2 bis rue Sainte-Réparate, 06300 Nice
Phone	+33 4 93 85 62 57
Email	cafesindien@hotmail.fr
Hours	Tue–Sat 9:00 AM–12:30 PM & 3:00–7:00 PM; closed Mon & Sun
Accepts	Credit cards and cash
European delivery	Yes
The midday closure (12:30–15:00) is strictly observed — plan accordingly if visiting between lunch and late afternoon.

Glossary of Specialty Coffee Methods

For visitors less familiar with third-wave brewing vocabulary, the following terms appear on menus across the cafés listed above.

Term	Description
Batch brew	Coffee brewed in volume by a precision machine, usually a filter-style brew served black or with milk. Allows high throughput while preserving nuance when well-calibrated.
V60	A conical pour-over dripper (made by Hario) that produces a clean, bright cup. The barista pours hot water in controlled pulses over a paper filter; total brew time is 2–3 minutes.
Chemex	A glass pour-over vessel with a thicker paper filter than the V60, producing a heavier-bodied, sediment-free cup. Developed in 1941; aesthetically iconic.
Origami	A Japanese ceramic dripper compatible with both flat-bottom and conical paper filters, offering baristas flexibility in extraction profile.
Cortado	A small espresso drink balanced with an approximately equal quantity of steamed milk to cut acidity; roughly 60–90 ml total.
Flat white	A double ristretto (short espresso pull) topped with a smaller volume of velvety micro-foamed milk than a latte, resulting in a stronger, creamier drink.
Ristretto	A shorter espresso pull using the same dose of coffee but less water, producing a more concentrated, sweeter shot.
Single origin	Coffee traceable to a single farm, cooperative, or defined geographic region, as opposed to a blend of multiple origins.
Specialty coffee	Coffee scoring 80 or above (out of 100) according to Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) criteria, including fragrance, aroma, acidity, body, and aftertaste. Scores above 85/100 qualify as “grand cru.”

See Also

Top Restaurants in Nice

Grocery Shopping in Nice, France

Buy a Gift in Provence

Vieux Nice: The Old Town of Nice

References

Love.Ly.South — 6 Favourite Coffee Shops in Nice (March 2025)

Nice Shopping — The Art of Coffee in Nice

Falstaff — The 10 Best Cafés in Nice

European Coffee Trip — Nice Coffee Guide

Love Spots Nice — Various café listings

Provence Lovers — Cafés Indien Roaster Visit (May 2025)

Explore Nice Côte d'Azur — Full Bloom Café

HUG Café Nice — Official Website

La Claque Café — Official Website

Maison Karlie — Official Website

Selah Atelier — Official Website

Atelier Alfred — Official Website

HOBO Coffee — Official Website

Google Maps ratings and reviews verified April 2026.