LAVA - Cuisine & Vin

75005 PARIS

13/20
Chef's Restaurant

Chef

Cooking French | Modern

Gault&Millau's review

13/20

Chef's Restaurant Mélanie Serre had worked here (under the Louis Vins banner) before giving way to Olivier Bel. At the end of 2023, Wilfried Romain (who worked with Thierry Marx and was spotted on Top Chef in 2022) and sommelier Rémi Badjoint took over the premises, renovated the dining room (now brighter and more pleasant) and reopened under a new name, Lava. On the plate, the emphasis is on fine produce and travel souvenirs (the chef did quite a bit of traveling before settling in Paris), presented with a constant desire for gourmandise and a strong South American influence: beautiful ikejime pollack, slowly confit and then grilled with miso, pointed cabbage and kombu for a powerful starter, magnificent Axuria beef fillet cooked on the barbecue escorted by an extremely gourmet smoked mousseline and a fine-caliber green asparagus before a dessert full of nuances, combining candied rhubarb, cubed mezcal gel and a Greek yogurt sorbet subtly sprinkled with chipotle pepper. One might perhaps hope for a slightly more customer-friendly price/quantity ratio and a more adventurous cellar (connoisseurs won't make any discoveries here), but this address clearly seems well born.