L'Arpège

75007 PARIS

Gault&Millau Academy's member

BOOK

5 PHOTOS

Chef: Alain Passard
Cooking: French | Gastronomic | Healthy cooking | Local | Signature cuisine | Vegetarian
Style: Elegant | Exceptional setting | Romantic

Budget (€)

Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)

260 to 420

Gault&Millau's review 2026

The transition was smooth and natural. From "all vegetable" to vegan, without any animal input, the evolution was finally natural for Alain Passard who, in the middle of summer, wished to communicate the new orientation of his cuisine. This gives him obligations, but also a new challenge, that of making sauces without butter or cream, of not exhausting his repertoire by inventing sequences varied enough not to tire, playing on everything he has learned from nature to renew his menus with the seasons. For our dear Academician, who has given enough, everything is naturally permitted, and of course the right to change, to evolve, to go a little further in the approach that is close to his heart. There will be no more onions with parmesan, no more turbot with yellow wine, no more chimeras. But at the end of August, there were magnificent compositions of tomato and bell pepper, melon and watermelon, cucumber and beet. An unctuous and skilful gazpacho with a creamy white eggplant and lovage-infused homemade oil, a green bean hummus, a tomato, pineapple, beef heart and green zebra tableau as beautiful as a Castelbajac, a green bean salad with the famous sweet and sour sauce with honey from the Passard beehives, once devoted to lobster, artichoke heart bell pepper with tomato and rapeseed oil, pâtisson with basil, parsley and tarragon herb sauce, stuffed zucchini with beet and mint sauce that adds a touch of texture, like the smoked potato with vegetable sorrel stuffing and wine merchant sauce, with a powerful harissa that follows the beautiful ratatouille.. The old omnivorous reflex restrains us from imagining some of these compositions with, here a scallop, there a saddle of lamb... And then we gladly dive back into the exercise with desserts that are just as precise and limpid with rhubarb and angelica, with the pastry-free calville apple tart with melon sauce and basil ice cream with almond milk... of course. It's worth noting that the room is full, as usual, that the people here are quite handsome and visibly happy to be here, that not a single table booked before July 21 and then informed of the change wished to cancel, and that this extraordinary couple, who have been coming for forty years, continue to come for lunch, every Friday and Tuesday... Very well-stocked cellar in which the very good sommelier finds even more pleasure in inventing relevant pairings (less côte-rôtie with game!), and service as committed as the maestro, now with his son Louis at his side.