Petit Déjeuner

The catacomb of streets behind the orderly 17th-century houses on the Cours Saleya market are lined with boucheries & boulangeries, Pâtis-series, épiceries, charcuteries, fromageries & confiseries. Any space bigger than a cupboard sells food: couscous, pasta, horse meat, wild game (furred & feathered), whole roast suckling pigs. At 8.30 Sunday morning in the city’s best bakery, the Four au Bois, half Nice seems to be waiting for André Espuno, who is still putting bread dough into his wood-burning oven at the front of the shop & lifting out (on a long-handled wooden spatula) his famous specialities: ‘les mains de Nice’, hand-shaped bread made Italian-style with oil; huge crusty ‘deux têtes’ & the miniature version ‘petites têtes’; fougasses with anchovies, olives, Roquefort or anise; & other Nice breads with walnut or thyme.