Zostera

Rating: 16.5
Author: Gault&Millau

75116 PARIS

16.5/20
Remarkable Restaurant

BOOK

13 PHOTOS

Chef: Julien Dumas
Cooking: French | Gastronomic | Signature cuisine | Traditional
Services: Privatization | Valet parking
Style: Romantic | With family

Budget (€)

Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)

50 to 125

Gault&Millau's review 2026

Julien Dumas, whose career we follow with great attention, as we know him to be as sensitive as he is talented, has thus taken flight. His new nest, Zostera, is a beautiful shelter in the XVIᵉ arrondissement, between Foch and Maillot. He has made it an elegant salon, and above all his home. He can express himself at ease here, and it's a big gamble for the man who has known prestigious establishments where he was warm, Lucas Carton and Bellefeuille Saint-James most recently. Here, for his first unassisted crossings, he navigates by sight and everything already seems to be in place. The superb green asparagus, from stem (confit) to head (raw), is enveloped in a Douglas fir emulsion, with the acidity of pomelo. Bear's garlic char with trout roe butter makes a good transition, before the first blow: the magnificent, almost raw scallops, pink by the slice, with emulsions that you can mix to your liking, lemon, coral, chili pepper. The sole is almost supplanted by the competition praires that push it towards the ocean, and the largest dish is in black and white, a translucent squid against an inky black as beautiful as a Soulages, discreetly supported, without seeing them, by the perfume of a combawa leaf and verjuice pear. A four-toque dish that shows that our Gault&Millau d'Or 2023 is well on the way to achieving this first goal, right up to Nicolas Berger's chocolate dessert with horseradish and seaweed ice cream. As for the wine list, we've taken a bold stance, with fixed prices arranged by region: €45, €65, €95, €145 and so on. So you can pick from the "Languedoc 65 €" section and find the keel that suits you, as well as from the "Bourgogne 195 €" section, where there's also plenty of choice. This has the advantage of being perfectly clear, in a place where uprightness extends to a certain indulgence in pricing (the €50 lunch menu, or the €90 menu, are real bargains).