Colvert – bistronomy with a starred-kitchen pedigree

On the corner where rue des Grands Augustins meets rue Saint-André-des-Arts, a few minutes from the Seine in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Colvert occupies one of those addresses that regulars treat as their own. The building reopened in April 2023 under a new identity, taken in hand by Les Becs Parisiens, the small Paris group built by Boris and Émilie Bazan. Since 2025 the stoves have belonged to chef Baptiste Borderie, whose career has run through the Trianon Palace under Gordon Ramsay, the Georges V, Joël Robuchon's kitchens in Macau and L'Oiseau Blanc. Colvert carries no stars, but it is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, the kind of recognition that rewards precise, seasonal bistronomy rather than spectacle. The room still wears its old bones — stone, leather, zinc — but the plates now move at a different, more deliberate register.

01The room and the setting

Colvert keeps the architecture of an old-school Left Bank bistro: exposed stone walls, leather banquettes, a zinc-topped bar and tiled flooring that has watched several incarnations of the dining room pass over it. A wall of windows wraps around the corner onto rue Saint-André-des-Arts, turning the main room into a kind of stage for watching the Saint-Germain crowd go by.

Upstairs, La Salle à Manger sits close enough to the kitchen to feel part of it, with a view onto the restaurant's glass-walled wine cellar. It seats up to twelve around a single table, built for private dinners, working lunches or the sort of occasion that calls for a room of one's own.

02The chef

Baptiste Borderie did not begin in kitchens. He started studies in mechanical engineering before changing course towards cooking, and that discipline still shows in how deliberately his plates are built. He trained through grand tables — the Trianon Palace under Gordon Ramsay, the Georges V and Joël Robuchon's kitchens in Macau — before joining chef David Bizet at L'Oiseau Blanc. He took over Colvert's stoves in 2025, succeeding chef Arnaud Baptiste and chef Anthony Limery, the cooks who had carried the address through its 2023 relaunch.

Insider tip

Open daily; lunch menu €36, tasting menu around €75; booking recommended for weekends.

At Colvert, that étoilé training is turned towards something plainer and more generous: a bistronomic cuisine built on seasonal produce sourced from suppliers met across his career, and on game that owners Boris and Émilie Bazan — both keen hunters — bring back themselves for him to work with.

03The cooking

The carte runs on two clocks. In the evening, that same carte is joined by 'éditions limitées' — small-batch, more ambitious plates served only while stock lasts — alongside a five-course tasting menu for around 75 euros.

04What to order

The short carte turns over often enough that no single dish is fixed for long, but recent menus have run from a pâté en croûte of foie gras, pork belly, blood sausage and pistachio to grilled squid with n'duja, coco de Paimpol beans and a coriander vierge, and a roasted pigeon with a braised-leg pastilla and prune d'Ente.

Fish has appeared as a pearly skate wing with spring vegetables and a green-curry beef consommé, alongside line-caught white tuna with a basil aubergine caviar and stuffed Provençal chard. Among the plats, a Comté gnocchi with vin jaune morilles and wild-garlic pesto sits next to a lacquered pork collar with honey-roasted figs, braised chicory and an XO sauce — a fair measure of how far this kitchen will push a classic bistro frame.

05Wine and drinks

The cellar has been assembled since 2018 and now runs to close to 500 references, chosen with as much appetite for grand Burgundy Pinot Noir as for the surprising weight of Alsace Pinot Noir, the range of Chenin, or lesser-known names from the Montagne de Reims. Bottles are poured from the glass up to magnum, and the upstairs Salle à Manger looks straight onto the glass-fronted cellar where they are kept.

06The neighbourhood

Colvert sits two minutes from the Seine, on a corner between Odéon and Saint-Michel stations, in the stretch of the 6th arrondissement where Saint-Germain-des-Prés runs into the Latin Quarter. It is one of several addresses run by Les Becs Parisiens, alongside Christine in the 6th, and the wine bar Grain(s), as well as ChoCho in the 10th arrondissement — a small constellation of restaurants built on the same appetite for good bottles and unshowy, well-made food.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.