Paris has an established reputation as one of the world’s greatest gastronomic cities. Exploding with creativity, it’s widely considered the holy grail for a lover of fine food. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, author of was living in Paris when he wrote, in 1825, ‘the discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star’. In 2019, however, the writer Wendell Steavenson described her encounter, on moving to Paris in 2006, with a repetitive, meat-heavy and dull cuisine that seemed regressive or, at the very least, stagnant. Haute cuisine was chasing old goals, she insisted, while real innovation was pushed by El Bulli in Spain.
By 2014, she had noticed some changes, mainly in the embrace of locally sourced ingredients and a new openness to culinary influences from outside France. Things were lighter, fresher and more cosmopolitan. The Anglo-sounding Le Fooding had entered the scene – publishing restaurant guides in English and French – and the bistronomie movement had arrived, injecting the restaurant scene with a new radical spirit. Whilst Steavenson suggests the very Frenchness of the new Parisian restaurant was in doubt, the last decade in Paris has proven otherwise. The foundational depth of French cuisine has allowed it to evolve without losing its essence.
Gastronomic cuisine delivered via tasting menus has never been more eclectic and cutting-edge than it is now
It is difficult to know exactly how much of this is down to the influence of bistronomie on haute cuisine or the globalisation of fine-dining kitchens in general but gastronomic cuisine delivered via tasting menus has never been more eclectic and cutting-edge than it is now. Pushed and pulled from multifarious directions, it is no longer guided by hierarchy and dogma, and is often propelled by the brilliance of non-French chefs – particularly from Japan but not only.
Whilst the resurgence of culinary vigour in French has often come through movements and waves – nouvelle cuisine and later Alain Passard’s plant-forward philosophy at L’Arpege have been two of the last great forces – Paris today has never been more sharpened by culinary influences from outside France. But that doesn’t mean you’ll forget where you are, particularly when you open a wine list and are amazed by the options. Maybe it’s the weight of its own reputation but there is undoubtedly a Parisian confidence and flair underlying much of this. Here are six of the best fine dining restaurants that could only be in Paris.
Six of the best fine dining restaurants in Paris
Kei
Kei Kobayashi (pictured) was the first Japanese chef to buy a restaurant in Paris when he took over the 25-seat spot in Paris’s first arrondissement in 2011, which has held three Michelin stars since 2020. After learning how to cook French food in Tokyo, Kobayashi trained with Gilles Goujon and Alain Ducasse in Paris, eventually developing the inimitable style that’s on show today at Kei.
The opulent but intimate dining room feels both classical and futuristic, and its silvery-grey colour scheme helps to highlight Kobyashi’s notably colourful food. His mesmerisingly creative cuisine also represents a synthesis between opposing forces, melding naturalism and molecular cuisine, and he brings a restrained Japanese energy to the French kitchen to create highly imaginative but ethereal, pristine dishes. They push boundaries with unexpected flavour combinations – such as hay-smoked langoustine with squid ink and pigeon liver – and are all clearly underlain by a deeply thoughtful process.
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Le Clarence
Located just off the Champs-Élysées in a 19th-century townhouse owned by Prince Robert of Luxembourg, the palatial rooms feature a kaleidoscope of radiant colours, damasks and botanics across the walls and carpets. But the plush interiors belie a more subtle culinary composition. Whilst the notion of chefs as artists can be overstated, seafood-focused chef Christophe Pelé’s quirky approach in the kitchen relies on a selection of seasonal fruits, herbs, and flowers – his ‘artist’s palette’ – to finish dishes according to instinct, an approach recognised with two Michelin stars. He is more than moved by the whims of the season, creating new dishes for almost every service, and there’s a zest and panache to the food that feels dynamic and present.
Expect intriguing combinations of surf, turf and fruit that you won’t have experienced before – such as blue lobster, bone marrow and blueberries or tuna, lardo and strawberries. Every dish comes with side dishes, ensuring the senses are constantly excited. Dishes are lithe and expertly paced, delivered with enthusiasm and attention by the amiable staff. Also of note are the two wine lists; one containing a library of Château Haut-Brion back vintages (the Prince also owns the Bordeaux estate), and another featuring many of France’s most pioneering winemakers.
Omar Dhiab
As you pass the open kitchen on entrance to the one Michelin-starred restaurant, the cosy dining room graces you with a warming burgundy, walnut and fern colour scheme and pleasing design. With a brilliant foie-gras and smoked eel dish and a clever play on a croque monsieur, the chef isn’t afraid to display bold French flavours and traditions but there are subtle hints to his Egyptian heritage in his use of nuts, little blasts of capsaicin piquancy, and the way he prepares lamb and beef, all of which propel French food into new directions. The tasting menu is expertly connected from start to finish and instead of petits fours, it ends with a comforting semolina pudding — his mother’s recipe — that pays homage to Dhiab’s childhood.
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Géosmine
The New Nordic kitchen meets French heritage and produce in this novel one-Michelin-starred menu delivered in an understated yet classy setting. The word ‘Géosmine’ refers to a molecule found in earth, and the concept runs deep across the menu, with dishes presented on the plate with an uncluttered, naturalistic synergy, often concealing daring flavour combinations. As might be expected in the 11th arrondissement, the wine list is avant-garde and low-intervention focused, but as a result has a few different cuvées from exclusive producers, such as Prieure Roch and DRC in Burgundy, and Pierre Overnoy and Cellier Saint-Benoit in Jura.
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Maison Sota
Tokyo-born Sota Atsumi cooks French food with a crystalline lightness of touch at his restaurant Maison. What he presents is a cuisine of subtraction, bringing an air of wabi-sabi into a menu full of purity and delicacy, delivered in an open kitchen centred around a grill and wood-fired oven. The organic design of the clay-hued room – with its shellac-finished word furnishings – draws you in, creating a mellow, casual atmosphere to take in Atsumi’s cooking. The menu is constantly changing and hyper-seasonal but dishes often contain no more than three ingredients. Classical French sauces appear throughout but any hint of richness is balanced in ways you may have previously thought were impossible.
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Amâlia
Opening in March 2024, chef Eugenio Anfuso and pastry-chef Cecilia Spurio worked in some of the best restaurants in Paris and have now ventured on their own to bring an entirely new concept to the city. Enjoyed in an elegant and sleek dining room with textured white tablecloths, the highly inventive menu feels intensely personal. The Italian couple have created an exquisite and vivid synthesis of French and Italian cuisines, with Spurio’s meticulous pastry work appearing in the snack section – with an expertly balanced corn and bottarga cylinder, and an aubergine and anchovy tartlet, as well as in a stunning dessert of rhubarb, fontainebleau, strawberry and poppy. There’s original flavour combinations like spider crab and coffee; and turbot, vanilla, tomato and olive; as well as unforgettable pasta dishes such as a lemon-perfumed spaghettoni with spicy oyster sauce, lovage oil and Lebanese sumac, all of which stretches the boundaries of French cuisine from the inside-out.
