Vegan ou vegatarian ? Choose the right langage stay

You really want to do a langage stay in Nice to learn French ?

You dream of discovering the French culture, enjoy the sun of the French Riviera, discover the local gastronomy, share moments with a French family ?

But you are worried : your diet is different.

You are a vegetarian, vegan, you don’t eat gluten or you are lactose intolerant.

And you heard that France is not a very welcoming place for people with a different diet.

I won’t lie to you, of course France is a lot behind compare to Germany, UK or Switzerland regarding the vegan food but rest assured, you will still live a great experience if you come to Nice and especially at alpha.b !

Why choose alpha.b if you are a vegan / vegetarian or any other « special diet » ?

For many years, alpha.b team is very involved in giving the best experience possible to our vegan/vegetarian students.

First of all, regarding your accommodation :

If you want to live with a host family, alpha.b team has selected for you families that are completely open to this type of diet and they will gladly good for you vegan, vegetarian or gluten free meals for you.
We even have some host families that are vegetarian.

And to help our host families to welcome you in the best possible conditions, alpha.b is the only school in Nice that organised awarness meeting about special diets.

We also offer to all our families a PDF book with all information about each diet + recipes.

The help is offered by Emeline, who has been working at the school for 10 years and has been a vegan for the last 5 years. She is always available for the host families or the students who would have questions or problems about this subject.

We are also very glad to have received last summer several testimonials of vegan/vegetarian students who were really happy about the host family like this one :

I’m really happy with my stay at alpha.b and I am really pleasantly surprised that my family cooks vegan food very well for me ! They asked me what I ate or not and they really did their best.

If you don’t want to live in a host family but rather at a hotel or in a residence, you just need to come to the office and we would give you a list of all the stores and restaurants which offer vegan, vegetarian or gluten free food in Nice.

Regarding the activities :

When our guide Pacôme offers activities such as food tasting or restaurant, he always makes sure there will be a vegan, vegetarian or gluten free option for the students.

In addition, for the last 4 years, our school boycotts all activities that use animal exploitation such as Marineland, circus, zoo…

The directors of the school Pascal and Anja are very invested in animal welfare and are completely supportive of these initiatives.

Niçoise gastronomy is very plant-based

Another important thing when you do a langage stay is to discover the local gastronomy. And sometimes you can feel frustrated if as a vegan or a vegetarian you can not taste anything !

Rest assured, Niçoise gastronomy has a very strong plant-based influence.

We are in the South of France and we have a lot of vegetables, olive oil, chick peas … and they play an important part in our gastronomy. Niçoise cuisine is very simple, with a few products, nothing fancy because for a long time, Nice was very poor.

Here are some specialities you can taste while you are in Nice and that are 100% plant-based.

– La Socca : chick pea flour + olive oil + water – It is Nice’s speciality and it is 100% vegan

– La pissaladière : a bread dough with caramelized onions.

– La pichade mentonaise : a very simple pizza with tomato sauce, onions and italian seasonning.

– La ratatouille : lots of veggies cooked with olive oil

– Les beignets de fleurs de courgette (vegetarian)

– La tourte aux blettes salées et sucrées (vegetarian)

– La panisse : another speciality with chick pea 100% vegan

– La tapenade : olive paste

Vegan restaurants in Nice ?

Nice is getting more and more vegan friendly and you can eat in a lot of restaurants with vegan options or 100% vegan.

Here are some choices :

• Koko Green
• Vegan Gorilla
• Copper Branch
• Paper Plane
• Pâtisserie Amour
• Utopia
• Pekin
• ….

So don’t worry if you have a vegan, vegetarian, gluten or lactose free diet, do not give up the idea of a langage stay in Nice to learn French !

The city of Nice and alpha.b French school are waiting for you so you can enjoy your stay fully !