Auguste – Gaël Orieux's quiet tribute to Escoffier in the 7th

On rue de Bourgogne, in the hushed stretch of the 7th arrondissement where ministries outnumber shopfronts, Auguste is the long-running, unshowy project of chef-patron Gaël Orieux. He opened the room himself on 17 January 2005, a few steps from the Musée Rodin and the Invalides, and it holds one MICHELIN Star, a distinction the Guide awarded him in March 2007. Orieux built his reputation on fish and shellfish, a cuisine oriented toward sea and land in roughly equal measure, learned through a remarkable string of kitchens before he ever signed a lease of his own. He named the house after his first manual, Auguste Escoffier's Guide Culinaire, recommended to him during his apprenticeship and never really put down since. It is the kind of address that regulars return to quietly, year after year, rather than one built for noise.

01The room and the setting

Auguste sits in the diplomatic quarter of the 7th arrondissement, close enough to the Musée Rodin and Les Invalides that lunch here often follows a morning in a museum. The dining room was reworked twice, in 2014 and again in 2023, by the architecture practice Polyèdre under Emilie Pineau-Valencienne and Eric Douetté, working to Orieux's own brief for something sober and faintly shadowed, in the register he associates with London dining rooms. The result is a black-and-white space animated by bare walnut tables, walls carved into wave-like reliefs, a cable sculpture by Jean-Michel Astuguevieille studded with yellow terminals, and a portrait of Curnonsky, the self-styled "Prince of Gastronomes", painted during a stay in Pont-Aven in Brittany.

02The chef

Gaël Orieux was born in 1972 in the Maine-et-Loire and grew up partly in Riec-sur-Bélon, in Finistère, where he was a competitive rugby player and a diving instructor before a cooking apprenticeship took hold almost by accident. His training reads like a tour of the grandest Parisian kitchens of the era: a year as a pastry commis under Paul Bocuse in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or, two years at Lucas Carton under Alain Senderens, then Philippe Legendre's kitchen at Taillevent, where Legendre later asked him to help reopen Le George V. He finished as Yannick Alléno's second at Le Meurice before striking out on his own in the 7th arrondissement, with Alléno's encouragement behind him. Orieux remains an ambassador for the Mr Goodfish sustainable-fishing programme, a conviction that runs straight through his sourcing.

Insider tip

Open Monday–Friday for lunch and dinner only; book ahead, correct dress required, no Amex or cheques.

03The cooking

The kitchen leans toward fish and shellfish without ever abandoning meat and vegetables, a style the chef describes as a meeting between land and sea. On the current carte that means tétragone soup with herbs and smoked frog's legs, hollow oysters called "Perles noires" set in a seawater jelly with horseradish mousse and Comice pear, or monkfish with spice and bottarga alongside cauliflower and sea herbs. Scallops arrive with pine morels and chestnuts, crispy sweetbreads with peanuts and dried-apricot mushrooms in Jura wine, and lobster with Paimpol beans and black lemon. The cooking is precise rather than showy, built around seasonal change rather than fixed signatures.

04What to order

From the entrées, the roasted langoustines with an old-parmesan raviole and iodised rice foam (56€) are a fair introduction to the register. Among the fish courses, the lobster with Paimpol beans and black lemon and the monkfish with bottarga (54€) show the sea side of the kitchen; from the meats, duckling with polenta and crab (59€) and the crispy sweetbreads with peanuts (62€) cover the land. Cheese comes as a selection from the celebrated Marie Quatrehomme (28€), and to finish, either the pure-Caribbean chocolate soufflé with Paris-honey ice cream (19€) or the Limoncello-and-rose-water baba with lychee freshness (22€). Two tasting formats run the length of the carte: the Menu Instant Michelin at 96€ and the Menu Signature at 120€, each offered at both lunch and dinner.

05Wine and drinks

The list leans French but roams further for texture, with a Chablis "La Sereine" from La Chablissienne and a Condrieu from the Vignoble de Boisseyt among the whites, and reds that run from an entry-level Michel Lynch Bordeaux to a Cahors "Tradition" from Château Haut-Monplaisir. Both tasting menus come with their own pairing: three glasses for 64€ alongside the Menu Instant Michelin, five glasses for 90€ with the Menu Signature, each poured for the whole table rather than by the glass piecemeal.

06When to go and booking

Auguste serves lunch from midday to 2pm and dinner from 7.30pm to 10pm, Monday to Friday, and closes entirely at weekends, which makes early booking worthwhile for anyone building a Paris week around it. The house asks for correct dress and does not take cheques or American Express. Given the room's modest size and its following among a loyal, largely local clientele, reserving ahead rather than walking in is the sensible approach.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.