When the kitchen becomes a bar

Leaning back for a coffee on the zinc or sharing a drink at the bar. In bistros and brasseries alike, counters are convivial haunts. But with the dynamic opening up of gourmet kitchens overlooking the dining room - or vice versa - these arrangements become privileged high tables for keeping a constant eye on cooking and plate setting. Sometimes, as in the case of chef Julien Gatillon, bars are at the heart of a culinary concept designed to ensure proximity, almost intimacy, with the chef. In rooms that mix counters and ordinary tables, these seats are reserved for customers who know how to stand up high enough not to consider them as last-class investments, but as a good plan!

Tékès in Paris

There's really only one way to enjoy the lively atmosphere of Assaf Granit's vegetal den: at the counter! We already knew that the Israeli chef knew how to deal with proximity from the success of his restaurant Shabour, where you dine in a cosy atmosphere sculpted by candlelight on a pretty granite bar. But at Tékès, you have to get up high (on the stools, that is) to get a front-row seat to the show put on by the Israeli chef's team. Shouting, singing and, above all, tasting the sauces that the chefs spontaneously offer to those who have the good sense to accept a seat as close as possible to the grill...

• Where? 4 bis rue Saint-Sauveur 75002 Paris
• www.tekesrestaurant.com

Chocho in Paris

In place of Le Bel Ordinaire, the grocery-dining room of the late food critic Sébastien Demorand, Thomas Chisholm invites the curious to ask for a seat at the counter. Here, you can see everything from serving trays for storing the ingredients of his hyper-regressive toasted bread mousse dessert to airtight tins for Cantabrian anchovies. The former Top Chef contestant has nothing to hide!I wanted my team to be very close to the clientele, so as to engage them in conversation", he confides. And he confides , "my colleagues don't hesitate to let those who sit at the counter try a little sauce or an improvised recipe". But the cooks in his brigade don't just stay at the stove. They also leave the pass to serve the whole room. "At the last restaurant I worked at, the AT restaurant, there was no wait staff at all. It was the cooks who brought the dishes to the dining room. It made such an impression on me that I wanted to reproduce this formula in my own restaurant. I really wanted to erase the boundary between the kitchen and the dining room," says the chef. Of Franco-American origin, he makes no secret of his desire to import the relaxed, jovial spirit of Anglo-Saxon service. At the counter, conviviality is at its best.

• Where? 54 rue de Paradis 75010 Paris
• chocho.becsparisiens.fr

You in Megève

If there's one chef who has mastered the art of cooking for a counter, it's Julien Gatillon! In Megève, this Grand de Demain 2016 is not satisfied with just one bar to compose his gastronomic galaxy in the Haute-Savoie resort, but manages three! After launching Nous, an exclusive, made-to-measure table d'hôtes, at the end of 2020, the pupil of the late Benoît Violier has gone back to the drawing board with the Vous concept, which takes the form of a fourteen-seat gastronomic counter facing the kitchen. A layout that doesn't preclude a tasting menu at dinnertime. On the floor above is its Japanese alter-ego, Anata, where you can enjoy tuna sashimi and sea bream nigiri, as well as tempura, again in the intimacy of a bar seating just twelve.

• Where? 36 rue Saint-François 74120 Megève
• www.juliengatillon.fr

Food Traboule in Lyon

In general, food courts are efficient in their layout: you place your order at the bar and join your table further on to devour your dish. Food Traboule, Tabata and Ludovic Mey's project to renovate these typically Lyonnais passageways, is one of the few food courts to invite diners to sit as close as possible to the chefs. In the Tour Rose, you can chat with the pizzaiolos at Ludo's Pizza, salivate over the making of octopus hot dogs at the Mediterranean counter, and try to decipher the secrets behind the making of quenelle fries at the bouchon lyonnais 2.0 counter.

• Where? 22 rue du Bœuf - La Tour Rose 69005 Lyon
• foodtraboule.com

Nicolas Villion © Alexandra Battut - Agence Camille Carlier

Hinoki in Brest

When you run a restaurant just a stone's throw from the ocean, it's a matter of course to concoct sushi according to the rules of the art. Such is the case with Xavier Pensec, in Brest. The master of Hinoki reserves the cutting of his locally caught fish, slaughtered according to the ikejimé method, for the ten diners at his counter. Just as in Tokyo, you can take in the sushi of sea bream, cuttlefish, horse mackerel or langoustine in a single bite. The Brest native trained with some of Japan's greatest sushi virtuosos, even coming close to Jiro Ono, the famous chef of a micro-restaurant in the Tokyo metro, considered by Joël Robuchon to be the best address of its kind in the world!

• Where? 6 Rue des 11 Martyrs 29200 Brest
• hinoki-sushi.com