Campelli – Argentine warmth at the edge of the Palais-Royal

Campelli occupies a narrow frontage on the rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, in the 1st arrondissement, where the quiet of the Palais-Royal gardens meets the administrative hush of central Paris. Behind a discreet midnight-blue and gold façade sits a small, intimate dining room built on restraint: no tablecloths, no theatre, simply a creative table that keeps its ambitions close to the plate. Campelli is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide for 2026 and carries a score of 13 out of 20 from Gault&Millau, which lists it among its Chef's Restaurants. The kitchen belongs to Julio Martinez – Lito to those who work alongside him – an Argentine cook from Jujuy province who built his craft through a decade of demanding Parisian kitchens before taking charge here, shaping a menu that is French in its backbone and increasingly personal in its detail.

01The room and the setting

The address is easy to walk past, and that is rather the point. There is no grand signage, only the navy-and-gold frontage that opens onto a room designed for conversation rather than spectacle: close tables, a sober palette, and a kitchen whose ambition is left to announce itself through the food rather than the décor.

Two minutes on foot from the Louvre, Campelli sits within reach of the Palais-Royal / Musée du Louvre Métro, served by lines 1 and 7, with Bourse on line 3 and Pyramides on line 14 also close by. Métro Palais-Royal / Musée du Louvre (lignes 1 et 7), Bourse (ligne 3) et Pyramides (ligne 14) make it one of the easiest fine-dining addresses in central Paris to reach without a car. For private occasions, the house can seat up to eighteen guests in its private room, or twenty-five for a standing reception, while the whole restaurant can be taken over for up to forty-four seated covers or sixty-five for a cocktail format.

02The chef

Julio Manuel Martinez grew up in Perico, a small town in Jujuy province in northern Argentina, where his interest in cooking first took shape. He trained at hotel school between 2010 and 2012, then in 2016 flew to France for a trial in a restaurant in the Cantal, in Auvergne. What followed was a demanding Parisian apprenticeship across starred restaurants, bistros and brasseries, climbing through every rank of a kitchen brigade until he was ready to lead one of his own, absorbing something from every chef and every house along the way.

Insider tip

Open Mon–Fri only; book ahead for the six-course tasting menu or the lunch formula from €35.

Gault&Millau frames his arrival at Campelli as a changing of the guard that kept the address's ambitions intact: a new chef and the same determination to take things far beyond the typical “go-to” bistro, an intriguing restaurant that maintains its culinary reputation thanks to Julio Martinez. His cooking is French in structure and discipline, built on deep sauces and close attention to produce, but carries the Asian and Middle Eastern inflections he picked up across Parisian brigades and a warmth he traces back to South America.

03The cooking

The register is vegetable-led, aromatic and in constant motion, drawing on market arrivals rather than a fixed repertoire. Gault&Millau's 2026 notes on the kitchen give a precise sense of where the plates currently sit: slow-cooked celeriac with spinach cream, pear in verjus with almond milk foam and lovage, Label Rouge free-range chicken, mushrooms, finger potatoes, hazelnut-infused chicken jus with panko, poached peach, red berry compote, yellow bell pepper sorbet, apricot mousse, and crumble. It is cooking that favours fermentation, extraction and the quiet drama of a well-reduced jus over any visible flourish.

04What to order

At lunch, the formula changes weekly with the market: a starter and main, or main and dessert, for €35, or all three courses for €45, served Monday to Friday between noon and 2pm. Chou vert rôti - Cacio e pepe, Veau de Galice - Potimarron - Endive - Pamplemousse, Pêche & saison, accord de la criée give a fair sense of a menu built around sharp, clean pairings rather than excess.

In the evening, Martinez sets out his six-course tasting menu for €115, with a wine pairing offered at €55 — built, like the rest of the list, around a selection of French wines chosen to follow the shifts in register across the courses.

05When to go and booking

Campelli keeps a tight, weekday-only schedule: lunch from noon to 2pm and dinner from 7pm to 10pm, Monday to Friday, with the room closed at weekends. Reservations are taken online or by phone, and the kitchen asks that any allergies or intolerances be flagged at the time of booking so the tasting menu can be adjusted accordingly. For a group dinner, a company seminar or an anniversary, the private room or the full restaurant can be booked outright, with menus built to the occasion.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.