Numerous starred chefs have taken up residence in Paris. Discover 24 addresses of restaurants - in various districts of the capital - that raise French gastronomy to an art!
© Geoffroy de Boismenu
Sea bass quenelle, pan-fried foie gras, roast duck with cherries, Bresse poultry with Albuféra sauce, vanilla millefeuille, chocolate tart... The menu of Manuel Martinez, ex-chef of the mythical Tour d'Argent, is a conservatory of fine French cuisine. The medieval look of the front and the stained glass windows of the dining room have the old-fashioned charm of these Parisian buildings steeped in history, and with good reason: it was here, in what was once the convent of the Grands Augustins, that the future Louis XIII learned of the death of his father.
This isn't a restaurant, it's a myth. It is said that this is where the fork was born... Legend or not, the entrance to this place on the quai de la Tournelle always makes an impression, partly thanks to the corridor where the visits of crowned heads and celebrities from all walks of life are engraved. Then the lift takes the lucky diner to one of the most beautiful views of restaurants in the capital, in panoramic version. The canard au sang and crêpes Suzette (known here as "crêpes Mademoiselle") are the indelible hallmarks of the house, but it also offers a more creative repertoire.
Kei Kobayashi is the first Japanese chef to be awarded 3 Michelin stars in France, making him a real star in his native country. From Paris to Alsace, the golden-haired man honed his skills in some of France's finest brigades before settling in his own nest in a quiet street in the capital's hyper-centre, where he designed his restaurant as a mini palace. Several of his dishes have become 'hits', starting with this salad, which took five years to prepare and includes diced herbs, lettuce, smoked salmon, cubes of basil-lemon jelly, rocket and spinach cream, anchovy and olive mayonnaise, raw or barely cooked vegetables (cucumber, celery, cauliflower, radish, broccoli, turnip, etc.) and an almond and black olive crumble. What a poem on a very deep plate.
An icon of French gastronomy, the late Joël Robuchon created his "Ateliers" to take the mystery out of the great French cuisine that he once said "bored the shit out of him", hence the counter that is the DNA of the place and where you have to be, to be as close as possible to the play that is performed twice a day. The Atelier is hidden away in the basement of the Publicis Drugstore, which sells a bit of everything: everything here is black and red, but it's yellow that takes centre stage on the plate, with the buttery mashed potatoes that have been exported all over the world. Even if you order pasta à la carte, the purée will make an appearance. Even members of staff take great pleasure in gobbling it up during their breaks, sometimes dipping their chips in it.
This is perhaps the most beautiful restaurant in Paris, in what is already the capital's oldest palace. The décor is inspired by the Salon de la Paix at the château de Versailles, hence the mirrors, crystal chandeliers, bronzes, marble and frescoes that adorn the room. On the plate, however, there is no classicism: the current chef and Alain Ducasse's lieutenant, Amaury Bouhours, serves a cuisine that likes to confound, here a plunge into acids, there an exploration of bitterness. Only the warm guinea fowl and foie gras pâté reassures the palate. High-flying desserts by pastry chef Cédric Grolet, in particular this real fake Madagascar vanilla pod, which is both aesthetically and palate striking.
Before it was the restaurant where singing megastar Beyoncé ate, Septime was one of the emblems of Parisian bistronomy, a movement which saw chefs cooking up some very fine cuisine in a basic setting. But Septime is no longer a bistro, it is an ambassade of French creativity on a par with older establishments, thanks to the talent of chef Bertrand Grébaut, a hero of his time, and his partner in the dining room Théophile Pourriat, who never hesitated to take his customers' orders on one knee.
Awarded the Michelin Grail since 1996, Alain Passard is a living demi-god for chefs who remember that he was one of the very great chefs in Paris to have made plants the main feature of his dishes. His beetroot tartare, meatless couscous and vegetable sushi are praised far beyond our borders. Vegetables from his kitchen gardens in the Sarthe region of France have also become the stuff of legend, and can be purchased in baskets that can be booked in advance. The man is also an artist who exhibits in a nearby gallery. A poet of the plate.
Welcome place de la Madeleine to a monument to French gastronomy, once awarded 3 Michelin stars. Here, the restaurant is a small theatre where each table resembles a mini private salon. The man in charge of the kitchens today is Hugo Bourny, a young chef with a moustache who is as talented as he is creative, delighting diners with his pastry chef sidekick Jordan Talbot, the creator of evanescent sweets. The restaurant offers a special menu for under-35s: a full menu with champagne, two glasses of wine, water and coffee for €150 per head.
"Sauce is the verb of French cuisine", Yannick Alléno likes to say. Sauces are everywhere in his flagship, imagined as great vintages thanks to the cryo-concentration technique: in concrete terms, this involves concentrating the sauce by removing the water from the liquid in a centrifuge. In addition to the grand restaurant, the other excellent option on the premises (the Pavillon Ledoyen) is the Pavyllon, a Michelin-starred gourmet restaurant modelled on the Ateliers Robuchon. The menu is a lesson in mouth-watering titles: cheese soufflé with yellow wine sauce, poached fillet of beef with cherry leaf perfume, fine raw fish tartlet, green lasagne with Bolognese and Parmesan, little 'bird' pasta with broth, marrow and caviar, cordon bleu for two, jus spiced up with yellow wine and nutmeg...
It's no coincidence that Jean-François Piège is considered to be one of the greatest technicians of the kitchen: he was Alain Ducasse's lieutenant for a long time and is an obsessed collector of cookery books (more than 10,000, both new and old). His Grand Restaurant, a nod to the title of Jacques Besnard's cult film starring the inimitable Louis de Funès, is a small palace (without the hotel section) where he has developed recipes that are a real hit with eaters, from a pizza soufflé to blancmange, a cousin of the floating island with a custard that flows once the egg whites have been broken.
The lead actress in this edible play is Stéphanie Le Quellec, winner of Top Chef in 2011, who has set up two restaurants in one in the very chic avenue Matignon, with the gourmet table in the basement overlooking the kitchens. We have fond memories of a very vanilla cream - like a crème brûlée - served on a large plate with a caramelised disc on top and a texture that is neither dense nor liquid, with a praline at its heart. A vanilla ice cream accompanied the whole thing and the combination of the two containers was explosive. Hats off to pastry chef Pierre Chirac.
Chef Jérôme Banctel has been officiating since 2015 at the very luxurious La Réserve hotel located just a stone's throw from the Élysée. His style? Delicacy and travel inspiration, like this artichoke confit à la chaud, a technique discovered in Turkey. On the palate, it tastes like meat, with a flavour that lingers for a long time. This highlight is complemented by a juice made from artichoke leaves and artichoke purée and crisps.
This is one of the most beautiful restaurants in Paris, with its unusual entrance, its small lift and its roof opening onto the dining room, which was incredibly modern for its time. You'll have to wear a jacket here, but it doesn't matter what the fabric is, this place has been a party since 1942, with everyone from Salvador Dalí to Robert de Niro celebrating something here, while at the same time attacking two of the house emblems: the pigeon "André Malraux" (stuffed with bacon, thyme, bay leaves, salt, pepper, spices and pigeon liver) and the crêpes Suzette flambéed with Grand Marnier, bathed in their buttery, acidic juices.
© Le Plaza Athénée
Top Chef winner Jean Imbert may be young, but he has called on illustrious recipes from the French culinary repertoire to dress up the plates of the hotel's grand restaurant Plaza Athénée: velouté du Barry, vol-au-vent, canard à la bigarade, veal Orloff... The meal is so cinematographic in this sumptuous setting that it is like France with a capital F. The pace is perfect in the dining room thanks to the restaurant's talented director, Denis Courtiade, an authority in his field.
Clarence is a paradox: the place belongs to the Prince of Luxembourg and exudes the luxury of nobility from the very first minutes, sitting upstairs in an ultra-deep green sofa attacking the amuse-bouches, but the head chef in place, Christophe Pelé, is a mad dog that some of the local and non-local gourmets revere. Just one example of this rock chef's creations: finger-fed prawns with langoustine heads. Another mix of two worlds!
Chef Martino Ruggieri - if the name doesn't ring a bell, you should know that for a long time he was the shadowy hand of a certain Yannick Alleno - clearly knows how to arrange marriages with several heads, like this dish of spinach, oysters, beurre blanc with ponzu and caviar. The flavours of this dish are round, acidic, with hints of iodine (caviar and oysters) and then spinach leaves that envelop everything with their moisture and slight bitterness. A very nice sequence topped with a crunchy little surprise, spiral crisps.
The famous George V hotel is home to three Michelin-starred restaurants, including this lesser-known restaurant, with Alan Taudon in the kitchen, a more than creative chef capable of imagining a dish like a roast chicken using... a mango. We still have fond memories of a dish with an impressive flavour: turbot streaked with concentrated cep mushrooms, with spoonfuls of cep sabayon on the side, crispy tuiles made from cep and parmesan powder, and a green juice made from cep stock and leek green oil.
Another monument to Parisian gastronomy. The XXL-size menus are no longer there, but there is still a tradition of cooking finished in front of the customer through the "Gestes" menu, where the food is cut and flambéed, under the supervision of a playful restaurant director, Baudoin Arnould... The restaurant itself is a discreet haven of peace all in light wood. As for the maestro of the kitchen, his name is Giuliano Sperandio and, together with his partner, the pastry chef, he is a credit to this restaurant, which has been open since 1946 and was awarded three Michelin stars for many years.
The meal on this cruise ship gets off to a great start - and not just because it's moored at the foot of the Eiffel Tower - with a small 35-gram tin of caviar containing a crab crumble wrapped in curry mayonnaise. On top, the steamy apple cloud adds a little acidity while the curry note lingers on the palate (not forgetting the more discreet caviar flakes, which blacken our cloud and add a hint of saltiness). The rest is meticulous, as always with the Meilleur de France Frédéric Anton - restaurant 3 stars Michelin Le Pré Catelan - who signs the menu.
Pierre Gagnaire is a sacred (living) monster of gastronomy, and not just for his kindness, praised by the entire gastronomy world, and his druid-like appearance. The man, who is passionate about jazz, loves to improvise in the kitchen, just as much as he loves to transform products into a multitude of dishes. Those in the know will know that autumn is when one of the master restaurant's finest scores is played out, with a menu devoted exclusively to different game meats. A sweet tooth's paradise here too, with a "grand dessert" that includes... nine of them.
© Pierre Monetta
A unique table as this restaurant is housed on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. The ultimate privilege: direct access via a private lift - you can walk back down, if you wish. The chef Frédéric Anton is at the helm in his favourite style: dishes that are both sober and very graphic, like these thin strips of scallops seasoned with lime and topped with a sea urchin sphere on which caviar grains are planted.
Norman chef David Bizet wows the world at the Peninsula Hotel on chic Avenue Kléber. Head for the top floor of the hotel to see for yourself: the hotel's gourmet restaurant where the little genius manages to transform a sweetbread into a summer dish, prepared with mint sauce, courgette violon and liquorice. The pastry chef, Anne Coruble, is still relatively unknown, but she also impresses the journalists who specialise in sweet dishes.
Pascal Barbot has trained many of today's top chefs, both in France and abroad. The man is considered to be very human, but he is also a citrus specialist, so it's not surprising that he has brought gastronomic critics down with an orange tartlet or a frosted mandarin filled with a yoghurt sorbet, masked by pieces of mandarin and lime.
There's nothing like this restaurant, opened in 1978, for discreet business lunches with the most comfortable seating in a top restaurant. It used to be known for its seasonal truffle sandwiches: the creator's lieutenant, chef Nicolas Beaumann, continues the spirit of the place with his own touch, but without upsetting the palate (langoustine, cockles in broth and passion fruit; quenelle of pike soufflé in a lobster cream...).
