Paul Bocuse

Rating: 18.5
Author: Gault&Millau

69660 COLLONGES-AU-MONT-D'OR

18.5/20
Prestige Restaurant

BOOK

19 PHOTOS

Chef: Olivier Couvin
Cooking: French | Gastronomic | Traditional
Services: Access for people with disabilities | Private Parking | Valet parking
Style: Elegant | Romantic

Budget (€)

Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)

230 to 370

Gault&Millau's review 2026

All the magic of this extraordinary place wouldn't be enough without a great plate. For years, the conundrum of doing Bocuse without Bocuse, the Bocuseian "to be or not to be" for director Vincent Le Roux and the chefs of this majestic brigade, Gilles Reinhardt and Olivier Couvin, has been waiting for a real answer. It would seem, with this vol-au-vent as a symbolic example, that we are finally getting a glimpse of the evidence. The title is quite orthodox - vol-au-vent de ris de veau financière - but the result is magnificent, generous, abundant, suggestive and furiously contemporary, in the clean cooking of each ingredient, in the graphics, in the textures that blend and harmonize, kidneys and cockle crests, quenelle, sweetbreads and truffles, all nimbed in an adorable chicken sauce. In what is France's most exciting and legendary restaurant, every element of the liturgy finds its place - the grand service in a reassuringly French banquet atmosphere, the limitless cellar handled with expertise and humanity by Maxime Valéry, the parade of dreamy dishes, from truffle soup to poultry in a bladder - and we find ourselves savoring without further restraint this extraordinary experience that allows us to rediscover Bocuse while tasting Couvin-Reinhardt: the sole with Fernand Point noodles is a delight, as is the spaghetti, part of which, like the fish, is inked, a refined and respectful reappropriation rather than a sub-version; the pike-perch and lobster quenelles, with their precise, velvety lamb's lettuce and fine champagne sauce, are also a totally modern dish, enshrining the eternally visionary spirit of this house cuisine. Monsieur Paul's gaze, brooding over his offspring from above, can certainly be benevolent and confident: good cooking belongs neither to a fashion nor to an era, and whether refined or earthy, contemplative or pleasurable, everyone will find here the pleasure of a great table and a great chef, right down to the wonderful dishes to be shared, sea bass in puff pastry crust with Choron sauce, duck from Dombes flambéed at the table or the famous cream and morel poultry, not forgetting, of course, the endearingly rich collection of pastries, confectionery and ice creams from the plethora of desserts designed by pastry chef Benoît Charvet.