The Paris restaurant scene is livelier today than it’s been in years, with a flock of new and reinvented restaurants that show why the city endures as the Western world’s capital of gastronomy and a major center of innovative restaurant design. Notably, many new Paris tables have foreign chefs, like Chicagoan Daniel Rose at Chez la Vieille, or are inspired by the culinary traditions of other countries, such as Jean-François Piège's Clover Grill, a French take on the American steakhouse. Here are six of our favorite new restaurants in Paris.
After the success of his Left Bank table, Clover, and his eponymous restaurant on the Right Bank, chef Jean-François Piège has opened a lively grill room restaurant near Les Halles, Paris’s old market district. From a superb selection of meats, the standout is the Noire de la Baltique beef, aged over beechwood shavings in a warehouse in the Port of Hamburg.
Clover Grill
6 Rue Bailleul, 1e. Tel. (33) 1-40-41-59-59
Talented young chef Mathieu Pacaud, the son of Bernard Pacaud of the three-star L’Ambroisie in the Place des Vosges, has succeeded with a brilliant reboot of one of the most famous seafood restaurants in Paris. The new look of the dining room is by Studio KO, which did London’s trendy Chiltern Firehouse, and it includes a pink-marble bar and a conservatory dining room with grass cloth walls. The cooking is outstanding, including dishes like oysters with grilled lemon, and turbot with citrus fruits.
Divellec
16 Rue Fabert, 7e. Tel. (33) 1-45-51-91-96
On the heels of his huge success in New York City with Le Coucou, Chicago-born, Paris-based chef Daniel Rose has revived one of the city’s most storied bistros with a small-plates format that includes dining at a long wooden bar or upstairs in a boudoir-like dining room. Don’t miss the terrine de campagne and the blanquette de veau.
Chez la Vieille
1 Rue Bailleul, 1e. Tel. (33) 1-42-60-15-78
For anyone wanting a good, simple, affordable meal of well-cooked contemporary French food, this diminutive new bistro in the swanky 7th arrondissement is an excellent choice. The menu changes often but includes appealing dishes like chestnut soup with poached egg, pan-roasted chicken with Jerusalem artichokes and mushrooms, and coconut panna cotta with clementine marmalade.
Le Petit Varenne
57 Rue de Bellechasse, 7e. Tel. (33) 1-42-73-60-72
After a tumble into mediocrity, one of the most famous restaurants in Paris is back on track with the arrival of acclaimed chef Philippe Labbé, who previously cooked at the Shangri-La Hotel and L’Arnsbourg in eastern France. Try dishes like langoustines with raspberries, beets and lemon verbena, and scallops with caviar, white chocolate and lobster oil — if you don’t choose one of the restaurant’s famously numbered ducks.
La Tour d’Argent
15 Quai de la Tournelle, 5e. Tel. (33) 1-43-54-23-31
Gastronomic entrepreneur Alain Ducasse has finally solved the “lunch problem” bedeviling visitors to the Château de Versailles. His new restaurant in Pavillon Dufour makes it possible to get an excellent meal on the spot without trekking into town. Try the foie gras with fig chutney, turbot with Béarnaise sauce, and La Religieuse, a caramel choux pastry, for dessert.
ore
Château de Versailles, Pavillon Dufour, 1st floor; Place d’Armes, 78000 Versailles. Tel. (33) 1-30-84-12-96
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