La Paillote

After T2 security, this is the sit-down spot that still feels Niçois

Inside Terminal 2’s airside zone, La Paillote is one of the rare full-service restaurants where you actually get a table instead of a takeaway counter. It sits in the boarding area, so you’re already through security and within a few minutes’ walk of most T2 Schengen gates. The vibe skews more local than the generic coffee chains around it, with Niçoise dishes sharing menu space with safer pasta and burger options.

Figure on €20–€30 per person for a main and a drink; this is squarely a $$$ airport meal. Several Google reviews point out that portions run smaller than similar plates you’d get in central Nice for the same money. The food itself gets a middle-of-the-road 3/5-type response: acceptable salad Niçoise, decent pasta, nothing that feels like a destination restaurant, but better than grabbing a pre-made sandwich if you’ve got an hour to spare.

Service is classic airport Europe: a few servers working the whole room during the big bank of departures around 07:00–09:00 and again from about 17:00 onward. Multiple reviews mention long waits to order and then another long wait to get the bill, especially when several gates in T2 are boarding at once. If you sit down here with a tight 45‑minute connection, you’re rolling the dice on both food arrival and payment.

Watch out for the time lag between finishing your plate and actually paying; reports talk about 10–20 minutes just to flag someone during peaks. That matters when boarding for a flight to, say, Paris or London at gate numbers in the high 20s gets called only 25 minutes before departure. The practical move: grab a table closest to the aisle where staff walk past, order your drink and main together, and ask for the check as soon as the plates hit the table.