More Photos (6)

Call it a taste of spring. These days, blossoms abound on the French Riviera, not just on the hillsides, but on the plate. Other trends: Renowned chefs are leaving their palaces to open their own little bistros with affordable country-style dishes. And young foreign chefs are snapping up Michelin stars, thanks to their wildly creative versions of Mediterranean specialties. This week, our local correspondent Lanie Goodman shares some of the latest culinary hot spots. Among the highlights:

FLOWER POWER

• A Tourettes-sur-Loup cooking class that specializes in dishes prepared with local flowers like begonias (crunchy and fruity), pansies (velvety and nutty) and nasturtiums (peppery, like radishes)
• An intimate, modern restaurant a block from the sea in Nice, where a young Japanese chef concocts Mediterranean dishes with an Asian twist, like sea-bass carpaccio sprinkled with edible blossoms
• A tiny vaulted bistro whose chef was just awarded a Michelin star for such dishes as white asparagus with a nasturtium sorbet
• A Provencal spa restaurant where you can recharge with a light lunch of lavender-marinated salmon on the patio

RELAXED BUT REFINED

• An informal terrace restaurant at a Vence chateau where meat and fish are spit-roasted in an open kitchen

• A venerable Antibes hotel’s new grill, where you dine on an ocean-liner-style teak deck jutting out over the Mediterranean

• Nice’s most stylish restaurant, with a sweeping view of the sea, where a Finnish chef serves up perfectly cooked fresh local fish

• A two-Michelin-star chef’s intimate spot near the Picasso Museum in Antibes

• A hillside bistro in Menton where a Michelin-starred Argentine chef creates inventive fare like sweetbreads flavored with pear and licorice

Read a list of all our new favorite Riviera restaurants.