A 1848 grand hotel rescued, gutted, and put back into the market in 2022 as the city's most considered contemporary five-star, with a roof terrace that holds the best evening view in Nice and an interior architecture programme finally worthy of the address.
"For most of two decades the Plaza was the great Nice question mark, a listed Belle Epoque facade with a fading interior. Anantara's 2022 restoration has resolved it. The result is the only address in Nice that competes with the Negresco on the strength of its rooms rather than its myth."
The Plaza opened on Avenue de Verdun in 1848, the second purpose-built hotel in Nice and a contemporary of the Promenade des Anglais itself. Across 175 years it passed through the usual cycle of grand-hotel ownership, picked up the Edwardian and inter-war refurbishments, drifted through the second half of the twentieth century as a steady but underconsidered four-star, and was finally taken off the market in 2020 for a two-year structural rebuild. Anantara, the Thai luxury group with a strengthening European footprint, took over operations in 2022 with the Plaza as the brand's debut on the Cote d'Azur. The listed facade was retained, the interior was substantially rebuilt, and the property reopened as 151 rooms and suites under both the Anantara flag and the Leading Hotels of the World membership.
The rooms are the property's strongest argument. The interior design was led by the French studio Hirsch Bedner Associates and the language is a calibrated reading of Riviera vernacular: white oak parquet, fluted plaster, Pierre Frey textiles, and a colour palette anchored on sand, ochre, and the deep green of the Jardin Albert I directly across the street. Categories run from Deluxe Premium rooms at 30 to 35 square metres to a small number of Penthouse Suites with private terraces that look directly across the gardens to the Mediterranean. Bathrooms are marble, walk-in, and unusually generous for a refurbished Belle Epoque building. The room product is the most current five-star benchmark in the city and the property is the only one to be carving credibly into the Negresco's market share at the top end of the rate band.
The dining offer is built around two rooms. Seen by Olivier, the signature restaurant under chef Olivier Samson, runs a Mediterranean-French tasting menu in a soft-lit ground-floor room with terrace seating onto the avenue. Le Caprice de Sophia, the all-day brasserie, is the property's neighbourhood-facing room and pulls a strong local lunch trade. The roof terrace is the property's social asset and a genuine destination on its own: an open-air bar with the best evening view of the Jardin Albert I and the Promenade beyond, open through the warmer months and a fixture on the Nice cocktail circuit. The spa runs Anantara's standard treatment menu in a quiet basement floor with an indoor pool, sauna, hammam, and six treatment rooms.
Service is the property's quietly improving asset. The team is largely local, the front office is fluent in English, French, and Italian, and the operational personality is closer to a private city hotel than a global five-star chain. The Anantara loyalty model (the GHA Discovery programme) is one of the more functional in the European market and works well for repeat visitors. The location, two minutes on foot from Place Massena and the Promenade, three minutes from the old town, and ten minutes by car from the airport, is the strongest in central Nice for any traveller who values walking access over a beach-facing room.
For a Riviera honeymoon at a contemporary five-star with a serious room product, the Anantara Plaza is the cleanest choice in Nice. Book a Garden View Junior Suite for a quiet weekend and a Premium Suite with terrace for a longer stay; the rooftop bar is the property's nightly set piece for a couple. The concierge desk arranges private boats from Port de Nice, drives along the Corniche to Eze and Monaco, and a perfumer's morning at the Galimard atelier in Grasse.
For an anniversary trip, the Plaza is the Nice property where the rooms still feel new and the food and beverage programme reads as ambitious rather than embalmed. Book a Penthouse Terrace, schedule a private rooftop dinner with the bar reserved for the evening, and arrange a half-day perfume composition session at Molinard or Galimard. The hotel can also dress the suite for a major year, white peonies and a private string trio for the arrival, at a fraction of the equivalent Negresco package.
The Plaza is the central Nice booking for a business visitor who wants the airport in fifteen minutes, the convention centre Acropolis on foot, and a meeting space that can host a board dinner without booking out. The Diplomate boardroom seats 16, the ground-floor private room seats 24 for a working lunch, and the roof terrace closes well for a sponsor reception during the Nice and Cannes congress calendar.
12 Avenue de Verdun
06000 Nice
France
Nice Cote d'Azur Airport 7 km (15 minutes by car); Place Massena 2 minutes on foot; Promenade des Anglais 4 minutes on foot
151 rooms and suites
Deluxe doubles from EUR 375/night
Garden View Junior Suites from EUR 850/night
Premium Suites from EUR 1,800/night
Penthouse Terrace Suite to EUR 4,800/night
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 12:00 PM
Opened 1848; relaunched 2022 under Anantara; Leading Hotels of the World
Seen by Olivier (signature restaurant)
Le Caprice de Sophia brasserie
Rooftop bar over Jardin Albert I
Anantara Spa, indoor pool and hammam
Boardroom and private dining
Complimentary WiFi throughout
From EUR 375 / night. Penthouse suites and Premium Garden View categories book three months ahead for Cannes Film Festival, Monaco Grand Prix, and August peak. Shoulder weeks in June and September offer the strongest value.
Compare Room Rates →The 1913 pink-domed palace on the Promenade, 117 keys, a private art collection, the Riviera grand hotel benchmark.
The 1929 Art Deco casino palace on the Promenade, 188 keys, the only sea-facing infinity pool on the boulevard.
A listed Belle Epoque facade on Boulevard Victor Hugo with a rooftop pool and the city's most ambitious spa programme.
Off peak pricing, suite upgrades, and subscriber only offers, flagged only when the value is real.