A small, discreet dining room on rue Mazarine in Paris's 6th arrondissement has just entered its third life. The space once housed La Cafetière, then became Le 21 under Paul Minchelli, the seafood chef whose stripped-back 1980s style still shapes how Paris cooks fish. Now American chef Braden Perkins — best known for Verjus, his much-loved restaurant near the Palais Royal — has taken over the address.
The format is unusual for Paris and part of the appeal. Perkins serves one prix-fixe dinner menu at a single seating, Tuesday to Friday only. There are no choices and no real menu to study in advance; it changes daily, and diners effectively hand themselves over to the kitchen, the way they would at an omakase counter in Japan. Perkins reinforces that vibe by presenting and explaining most courses himself, in a relaxed, personable manner that regulars of Verjus will recognise.
The food itself blends French technique with Japanese accents. A recent meal opened with a run of amuse-bouches — a shallot tartelette, a red onion rosti, an egg yolk glazed with maple syrup — before moving into a series of tartares and carpaccios with a clear Japanese influence. Then comes the comfort: a lobster Thermidor of the gloriously old-school variety, and a whole cauliflower roasted in XO sauce that coaxes serious flavour out of a humble vegetable. It's a sequence designed to surprise and reassure in equal measure.
Given the room's diminutive size and its four-nights-a-week schedule, tables will be scarce, and the €110 prix-fixe price puts it firmly in special-occasion territory. But for travellers who want a single, unhurried gastronomic evening in Saint-Germain-des-Prés — without the theatre of a huge tasting-menu palace — this is a compelling booking. Book ahead by phone or via the restaurant's site, and pair it with an evening wander along the Seine or a nightcap in one of the neighbourhood's classic bars.
