Calice – binchotan bistronomy by the Mouffetard market

On the quiet end of the rue Mouffetard market, two steps from the church of Saint-Médard, Calice took over the old address of Le Bel Ordinaire and turned it into a bistronomic dining room built around an open kitchen and a long counter, where French market cooking meets Japanese technique. It opened on 18 January 2024, the third address from restaurateur Julien Alain and sommelier Thomas Legrand, after their earlier successes Narro and Baillotte. Chef Kazuma Chikuda, who trained in the Paul Bocuse restaurants in Japan before opening the ramen house Narro in 2020, now runs Calice as executive chef and co-owner, working the binchotan grill in full view of the room, supported by cooks Louis Fedide and Nicolas Most. Pastry comes from Kaori Akazawa. The address holds a selection in the MICHELIN Guide and one Gault & Millau toque. At lunch the mood is gourmand and composed; by evening the carte turns to sharing plates, tapas-style, lit by a glass roof that pools daylight over the back room.

01The room and the setting

Calice spreads across roughly 120 square metres, divided into three distinct spaces: a covered terrace on the pavement, a long counter in Italian granite for solo diners and couples, and a glass-roofed back room where a skylight floods the space with daylight at lunch and turns intimate after dark. Reviewers have noted the ochre walls and deep leather banquettes that soften what was once a plainer bistro interior, with the open kitchen left in full view of the room, exactly as it was under the previous tenant, Le Bel Ordinaire.

The layout is deliberately social: the counter invites diners to eat alone or in pairs while watching the brigade work, the terrace catches the afternoon sun on the small square where rue Mouffetard meets rue Monge, and the glass-roofed room at the back is reserved for longer, calmer meals.

02The chef

Kazuma Chikuda built his reputation in the Paul Bocuse restaurants in Japan before returning to Paris, where he opened the ramen house Narro in September 2020 and later co-signed the menu at Baillotte. At Calice he is executive chef and co-owner, the figurehead of a Franco-Japanese kitchen that has become the signature of Julien Alain's three addresses. He is supported at the stoves by Louis Fedide, previously at Gavroche in London, and Nicolas Most, who came from Flonflon in Paris.

Insider tip

Closed Monday; book directly on the restaurant's website for lunch or the evening sharing carte.

Pastry is signed by Kaori Akazawa, whose desserts - built on contrasts of texture and temperature - have drawn as much attention from critics as the savoury side of the carte.

03The cooking

The kitchen's signature is the binchotan grill, the Japanese charcoal that burns clean and hot, used here to colour French bistro staples: a confit Roscoff onion is grilled on the embers and finished with stracciatella ice cream and a pork guanciale, while a veal quasi is grilled over the same coals and dressed with a black-garlic béarnaise made with garlic from the town of Takko in Aomori prefecture. The restaurant states plainly that it favours produce sourced directly from French farmers, artisans, fishermen and breeders, building French technique with Japanese seasoning - miso, yuzu kosho, shoyu - rather than fusion for its own sake.

Gault & Millau's 2026 review of the address, a continuation of the same team behind Baillotte, describes a carte that keeps evolving while holding its line, citing dishes such as beef tataki with smoked aubergine and a marinated cuttlefish with fennel and dashi jelly.

04What to order

From the evening carte: a pâté en croûte with foie gras, pistachio and black garlic; veal sweetbread karaage with yuzu kosho mayonnaise; and a lobster and cep ravioli finished with fermented salted lemon and a lemongrass-spiked lobster jus. For two, the tourte of mallard duck and foie gras with ceps and Solliès figs is built to share, alongside the binchotan-grilled veal quasi with butternut and that Aomori black-garlic béarnaise.

At lunch the formula runs through the same register in miniature - a confit Roscoff onion, a beetroot in three textures with beetroot miso, or a smoked gilt-head bream tartare - before dessert. To finish, Kaori Akazawa's dark chocolate Vacherin Xoco with salted caramel-popcorn ice cream, or a mirabelle clafoutis with jasmine and oolong tea ice cream.

05Wine and drinks

Sommelier Thomas Legrand, who also stocks the cellars at Narro and Baillotte, has built a list around natural, organic and biodynamic growers, running to roughly a hundred references by the glass and bottle as reported by Paris Select in 2024, alongside a short selection of sake and spirits that suit the kitchen's charcoal-driven, umami-leaning plates.

06When to go and booking

Calice is open Tuesday to Sunday, closed on Monday, with lunch service from noon to 2pm and dinner from 7pm to 10pm, according to the restaurant's own site in 2026. The lunch formula runs at €29 for two courses or €35 for three; the evening carte shifts to sharing plates, from snacks at €14 up to the two-person tourte at €82. Reservations are taken directly through the restaurant's website.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.