The neighborhoods surrounding Notre Dame have long been a favorite for flâneurs, with everyone from poet Charles Baudelaire to Ernest Hemingway popularizing this type of sauntering through the city. As Notre Dame reopens, start your own tour from the brass Point Zéro plaque in front of the cathedral strolling through the Latin Quarter and its bookshop-lined streets, over to the café-clad quartier of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and crossing one of the gorgeous bridges to the Marais on the Rive Droite.
With so many landmarks, museums and monuments huddled close together, there are plenty of tourist traps, but this area also sports an impressive amount of standout restaurants—if you know where to go. From unassuming neighborhood bistros to gastronomic destination restaurants worth traveling for, here are 12 of the best places to eat around Notre Dame, all approved by our MICHELIN Guide Inspectors.
1. Tour d'Argent, A Historic Icon With Unparalleled Views of Notre-Dame
When it comes to views of Notre Dame, it’s hard to beat the sweeping shots from Tour d’Argent’s panoramic windows. But the 400-year-old institution on the banks of the Seine continuously tops lists of best restaurants in Paris for much more than its vistas. Chef Yannick Franques, a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, skillfully executes traditional French haute cuisine delicately presenting dishes in more modern ways. For oenophiles, the wine cellar here—curated with more than 300,000 bottles—is one of the most lauded in the country—let alone the continent—and the new roof terrace, le Tout de la Tour, is the perfect spot to watch the sunset over the city’s many monuments.
2. AT, An Aesthetic Blend of New Nordic Cuisine And French Classicism
The Pierre Gagnaire protégé’s resume spans stints as some of Scandinavia’s most famous restaurants, like Geranium and Frantzén, and this influence seeps into every aspect of the minimalist, Nordic chic space in the Latin Quarter. Chef Atsushi Tanaka collaborated with ceramists, designers and artists on the tableware, which accentuates dishes that nod to molecular and New Nordic cuisine, as well as French classicism. Plates tend to play on a color, with two or three ingredients varying in similar hues, like his signature “Camouflage,” arctic char buried under a bed of sculptural shards of parsley and juniper.
3. Plénitude, Highbrow Hotel Destination Dining in Paris
Chef Arnaud Donckele’s mastery of sauce—which spearheads the menu at three-starred Plénitude—can be compared to that of a perfumer, each element of the dish perfectly balanced to express top, middle and bottom notes. He’s managed to parlay this expertise throughout Cheval Blanc Paris’s top-floor brasserie Le Tout-Paris, where a wraparound terrace and floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the Seine and Eiffel Tower, as well as to the new ground floor Hakuba, enhancing the fresh and delicate flavors of Japanese chef Takuya Watanabe’s omakase menu.
4. Guy Savoy, A Two-Star Spot Inside The Old Paris Mint
Guy Savoy’s three-starred eponymous restaurant sprawls across six dining rooms on the first floor of the Monnaie de Paris, on the banks of the Seine in Saint-Germain. Slate-grey rooms are outfitted with contemporary art and sculptures (the majority are from François Pinault’s collection), light flooding through expansive windows looking out to the Seine, Louvre and Pont Neuf. The art theme is threaded throughout Savoy’s cuisine as well, served as a set menu dubbed “Colors, Textures & Flavours” displaying the best of land and sea through plates like grilled scale-on sea bass and his signature cold artichoke soup with black truffle.
5. Baieta, A One-Star Mediterranean Haunt Near Notre-Dame
After earning a Star when she was just 21 years old at Les Fables de la Fontaine, Julia Sedefdjian opened her first solo spot, fine-dining Baieta, near Notre Dame in the Latin Quarter. Menus pay homage to the chef’s hometown of Nice and the South of France with seasonally focused dishes and haute spins on classics like bouillabaisse and pissaladière, caramelized onion and anchovy tarts. Take your pick of a surprise 4- or 7-course tasting menu in the minimalist space near the Seine, where the simple décor is like a blank canvas allowing the vibrant, Mediterranean-influenced cuisine to shine.
6. Ze Kitchen Galerie, A Local St Germain Institution
William Ledeuil’s Ze Kitchen Galerie is an oasis in a sea of the Latin Quarter’s tourist traps. Designed with art in mind (painter Daniel Humair is behind the colorful décor), the chef weaves vibrant shades of marigold and emerald into his French-rooted fare that reflects the artwork displayed around the dining room, which frames a windowed kitchen. Citrus is the star of Ledeuil’s cuisine, which incorporates touches from Thailand, Japan, Vietnam and India for playful pairings like sake-infused Burgundian snails in a coconut lemongrass broth and wasabi-white chocolate ice cream. Nearby on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, sister spot Kitchen Ter(re) is a blend of Italian and Asian influences with a focus on traditional, ancient grain pastas.
7. Benoît, An Age-Old Classic Near The City Hall
Wood-paneled walls, red velvet banquettes, engraved glass windows—Benoit embodies the classic Parisian bistro ambiance down to the traditional dishes like pâté en croute and black pudding and sweetbreads. The century-old spot was modeled after Lyon’s iconic bistros, and three generations of the Petit family were at the helm of what was once an old market hall. While it’s now part of Maison Ducasse, the restaurant hasn’t lost its Old World charm or philosophy of “drinking and feasting like kings,” which young chef Kelly Jolivet wholeheartedly embraces with a menu of turn-of-the-century favorites and regional specialties like homemade cassoulet and calf’s head in ravigote sauce.
8. Sola, Journeying Through Japanese Specialties
Japanese chef Kosuke Nabeta’s tasting menu Sola restaurant is more than a fusion of his native country with his adopted culture—it’s a celebration of technique and tradition, which can be felt in everything from the handmade ceramics (a majority of which are crafted by the chef himself) to his use of ingredients like sake, ponzu and mizuna for marinating, fermenting, smoking and drying. Hand-picked natural wines span more than 500 references from across France, Italy, Spain and Austria, while the sake cellar stores a selection of sparkling, traditional and more modern takes on the Japanese fermented beverage.
9. Allard, The Classic Parisian Bistro As It Should Be
Allard is an ode to the heyday of classic Parisian bistros and preserved the original décor from decades past without feeling kitsch. The 1930s restaurant is now part of Ducasse’s roster of iconic addresses and blends brasserie staples like escargots in parsley, garlic and butter and frog legs with richer French fare like pan-seared veal sweetbreads and grilled black pudding with quince. On weekdays, the family-style menu reinvents historic recipes adding a modern, seasonal spin to dishes like oeuf mayonnaise, served with celeriac rémoulade.
10. Alliance, A MICHELIN-Starred Staple To Know
The one-starred restaurant is less than a 10-minute stroll down the Seine from Notre Dame, tucked between the Boulevard St Germain and Quai de la Tournelle. Named after the partnership between wine aficionado Shawn Joyeux and Osaka-born chef Toshitaka Omiya, who cut his teeth working with gastronomic greats like Joël Robuchon, Alain Passard and Philippe Legendre, Alliance celebrates the beauty and simplicity of seasonal ingredients. Diners can watch the team work their magic from the focal point of the minimalist, Scandinavian-inspired space—a large bay window framing the kitchen.
11. Colvert, A Contemporary Spin On French Classics
Recently reopened with an entirely new concept and chef, the airy bistro in the well-heeled neighboring quartier of Saint-Germain-des-Prés adds a gastronomic spin to market-fresh fare with unexpected flavor pairings like compressed and candied potatoes with caramelized onion juice and summer truffle. The weekly-changing, three-course prix-fixe is an affordable way to sample Top Chef star Arnaud Baptiste’s talent, which he refined while working at starred spots in Paris like Le Meurice, while sipping a selection of hand-picked wines from legendary French producers and unexpected newcomers alike.
12. Atelier Maitre Albert, A French Fireside Feast
Sitting catty-corner from Notre Dame, the Guy Savoy restaurant is open every day of the week (a rarity when sightseeing on Sunday) and feels just as much of an experience as visiting the cathedral itself, thanks to the 15th-century building’s thick stone walls and medieval fireplace. The menu champions classic French cuisine with top-notch ingredients like spit-roasted Charolaise beef and free-range chicken (plus decadent favorites like duck foie gras) served alongside sides like traditional, cream- and garlic-infused gratin dauphinois.Hero image: View of the Paris skyline, including Notre-Dame, from the SO/ hotel. ©Joann Pai
