Akabeko – Fukushima's lucky calf, cooked in two languages

On a quiet stretch of the rue de l'Université, a few minutes' walk from the Musée d'Orsay, Akabeko occupies the ground and first floors of an old Left Bank building and gives Paris something genuinely particular: a French-Japanese fusion kitchen built entirely on trust. Chef Yasuo Nanaumi, after a fifty-year career that took him through some of the capital's most storied stoves, opened Akabeko in March 2023 as the first restaurant he has fully owned, running it with his son Ken Nanaumi at his side. The name comes from a Fukushima legend: Akabeko is a small red papier-mâché calf, traditionally kept as a charm against illness and misfortune, and it sets the tone for a house that treats both its cultures with equal seriousness. The restaurant is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide and rated 14/20 by Gault&Millau as a confident, serene Chef's Restaurant.

01The room and the setting

Akabeko runs on two registers. On the ground floor, a counter faces straight onto the open kitchen, a convivial perch for diners who want to watch the pass; upstairs, a smaller, more intimate dining room offers a quieter, more romantic version of the same menu. The building sits just east of the rue du Bac, in the stretch of the 7th arrondissement between the Seine and Saint-Germain-des-Prés, within easy walking distance of the Musée d'Orsay.

The decor keeps to warm, contemporary lines rather than overt Japanese signage or French bistro clutter, letting the two kitchens meet without either dominating the room.

02The chef

Yasuo Nanaumi arrived in France as a young cook determined to master its grande cuisine, and spent the following decades doing exactly that: time at Le Moulin de Mougins under Roger Vergé, at Lucas-Carton, and with the Troisgros family gave him a classical French vocabulary that he never abandoned, even as he built his career around Japanese precision. For ten years he ran the restaurant at La Maison de l'Amérique Latine before deciding, after half a century in other people's kitchens, to open a house of his own.

Insider tip

Lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday; dinner groups capped at six; booking recommended.

Akabeko is not his first partnership with his son: the pair had already opened a restaurant together, Sept'n, in 2009. Ken Nanaumi now works alongside his father at Akabeko, front of house and in the dining room, the family dynamic visible to anyone seated at the counter.

03The cooking

The kitchen works in omakase form only — the word comes from the Japanese verb meaning to entrust oneself to another's judgement — so diners are asked simply to flag allergies or dislikes before the chef takes over. Dishes lean on French terroir read through a Japanese hand: Sologne caviar, scallops and Champagne-based sauces recur on the table, alongside more pointed fusion moves such as foie gras finished with a teriyaki reduction or sole goujonnettes lifted with dashi.

One amuse-bouche that has turned up on the table is a scallop parcel seasoned with yuzukosho and chives, wrapped with a soy-and-shiso tempura leaf and topped with Sologne caviar — a single bite that sums up the house's method of marrying a Japanese seasoning with a French luxury ingredient.

04What to order

The format does the deciding for you. Lunch runs in three, five or seven steps (the three-step menu is not served on Saturdays or public holidays), while dinner is a single seven-step omakase; every table takes the same menu on any given sitting. The surprise is the point — ingredients and dishes shift with the market and the season, so no two visits read quite the same.

05Wine and drinks

Each tasting menu has a matched wine pairing, priced in step with the food — a lighter accord for the three-course lunch, a fuller one for the seven-step dinner. The house also builds some of its pairings around sake rather than wine alone, a detail the team is proud enough of to mention in the same breath as their classic cellar choices. The wider list runs from Champagne through small Burgundy and Chablis growers to reds with enough structure to sit under wagyu beef, with markups that diners have found reasonable for the Faubourg Saint-Germain.

06When to go and booking

Akabeko serves lunch Tuesday to Saturday from midday to 2pm, and is closed on Mondays and Sundays. The dinner omakase takes roughly two and a half hours, so it suits an evening set aside for the table rather than a quick bite before a show. The restaurant does not take dinner parties larger than six, has no children's menu and is not geared up for prams or high chairs, so it is better suited to diners over twelve. There is no fixed gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian or seafood-free menu, though a meat-free version can be arranged with notice; any dietary change requested on the night that forces the kitchen to improvise a dish carries a €25 supplement. Gift vouchers, valid for a year, are sold directly through the restaurant.

07The neighbourhood

This pocket of the 7th arrondissement is Left Bank at its most settled: antique dealers and publishing houses along the rue du Bac, the Musée d'Orsay's glass roof visible a short walk away, and Saint-Germain-des-Prés's cafés within reach for an espresso afterwards. The nearest stations are Solférino, Rue du Bac and Saint-Germain-des-Prés, all a few minutes on foot.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.