19.20 by Norbert Tarayre – grandmother's cooking in a 1920s palace

Behind the revolving doors of the Prince de Galles, the Art Deco palace hotel on avenue George V founded in 1928, chef Norbert Tarayre runs a restaurant that deliberately refuses the grammar of palace dining. Norbert Tarayre is a finalist of the Top Chef 2012 television show, and he took over the kitchens of 19.20 when it reopened as a bistronomic restaurant on 12 October 2023, having left the Bistrots Pas Parisiens group he had co-founded to cook, in his own words, the simple food of mothers and grandmothers. The result is a menu built on grated carrot salad, celery remoulade and pork loin with pommes Anna, served a few steps from the Champs-Élysées inside one of the most storied five-star addresses in the 8th arrondissement. It is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, a traditional-cuisine address in a city where palace kitchens rarely compete on price.

01The room and the setting

The decor plays on the Paris of the années folles: a series of paintings lines the walls, each one a nod to the city's artistic history, with fanciful animals mingling with silhouettes of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. Beyond the dining room, the restaurant also opens onto the hotel's patio, a quiet pocket shielded from the avenue outside and, by Paris standards, remarkably peaceful, the kind of place guests linger over a last glass once dinner is done.

02The chef

Norbert Tarayre's route to a palace kitchen was circuitous. Taken under the wing of Bernard Loiseau, he went on to work with Marc Veyrat and then Roland Mazère, before supporting Mauro Colagreco as sous chef the year he won his first MICHELIN Star, in 2012 — the same year Tarayre himself became a national name as a finalist on Top Chef. At 19.20 he cooks alongside executive chef Claudio Semedo Borges, the pair translating bistro repertoire into something fit for an avenue George V address without losing its honesty.

Insider tip

Open daily for lunch and dinner; Tea Time Fri–Sun and a Sunday brunch shared with Akira Back.

03The cooking

The kitchen favours dishes meant for sharing: a veal shank carved at the table from a copper pot, roast chicken, beef ribs, with cauliflower and lentils pulling the menu toward a stated ambition of serving mostly vegetable protein. Tarayre has been explicit about the sourcing behind it, working directly with producers, breeders and fishermen he knows personally, and about the spirit behind the plates: an honest kitchen built around the simple cooking of mothers and grandmothers, finished with the extra care that makes the difference.

04What to order

Expect the register of a good Parisian bistro rather than a tasting menu: a celery remoulade enriched with egg, and a salmon tournedos draped in broccoli mousseline and a light beurre blanc, with an unapologetically bistro plate of sausage and buttery mashed potato alongside. Dessert belongs to pastry chef Hélène Kerloeguen, whose trolley rotates through a chocolate mousse, a coffee éclair, an eggless rice pudding with caramel, a towering mille-feuille and a rum baba that regulars ask for by name.

05Tea time and brunch

Hélène Kerloeguen also runs a seasonal Tea Time, served Friday to Sunday from 3pm to 4.30pm at 65€ per person as listed on the restaurant's own site in October 2026, built around dishes such as a Tarte Tatin reworked with Granny Smith apple and a lemon-thyme jelly, candied squash with tahini and caramelised pecans, and a lemon tart lifted with combawa and buckwheat honey. On Sundays, the Prince de Galles turns its ground floor into a single sprawling brunch from 12.15pm to 3pm, spanning the hotel's restaurants from 19.20 to the Japanese kitchen of Akira Back.

06The neighbourhood

The restaurant sits inside the Prince de Galles in the Triangle d'Or, the gilded cluster of avenues around the Champs-Élysées that has long been Paris's address for couture houses and palace hotels. From the dining room it is a short walk to the Champs-Élysées itself, and the restaurant's daily rhythm, open from noon to 2pm and from 7pm to 10.15pm, caters as easily to a shopping-afternoon detour as to a proper dinner.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.