Don Juan II – the only MICHELIN Star that sails the Seine

Don Juan II is the dining room of a converted barge that Yachts de Paris sends out from Port Debilly, directly opposite the Eiffel Tower, every evening from Tuesday to Saturday for a dinner cruise down the Seine. It holds one MICHELIN Star, awarded in 2022 to what the Guide recognised as the Guide Rouge's only starred gastronomic cruise on the Seine, a distinction unmatched anywhere else on moving water. The kitchen is signed by Frédéric Anton, Meilleur Ouvrier de France and the chef who already holds three stars at Le Pré Catelan and two at Le Jules Verne in the MICHELIN Guide France 2024. He took charge when Yachts de Paris relaunched its gastronomic evenings aboard the Don Juan II in October 2021, turning what had been a freight barge into a fully revamped dining yacht. Five courses unfold over roughly two and a half hours as the city's illuminated monuments pass the windows, making this the only cruise anywhere to serve MICHELIN-starred cuisine.

01The room and the setting

Inside, the Don Juan II keeps the lines of a 1930s motor yacht: exotic hardwood panelling, brass fittings and banquettes dressed in textiles from the Maison Pierre Frey, chosen to sit somewhere between period Art Deco and contemporary Paris. The dinner-only cruise is staged inside this Art Deco décor, with tables angled toward the river rather than toward each other. The yacht casts off from Port Debilly, on the quai de New York between the Pont de l'Alma and the Pont d'Iéna, a mooring chosen because it looks straight across the water at the Eiffel Tower. Over the following two and a half hours the route runs past the Louvre, the Grand Palais, the Musée d'Orsay, Notre-Dame, the Hôtel de Ville and the Pont des Arts, before the boat turns back to moor beneath the tower as it begins to light up, the evening finishing with a glass of Champagne taken on the terrace.

02The chef

Frédéric Anton grew up in Contrexéville, in the Vosges, trained in some of the grandest kitchens in France, and was named Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 2000, going on to win a third MICHELIN Star in 2007 at Le Pré Catelan in the Bois de Boulogne. He later added Le Jules Verne, on the Eiffel Tower's second floor, to his portfolio, and in 2021 agreed to a third, more unusual address. He accepted the challenge of building a gastronomic offering aboard what had been a freight barge, an ambition he judged equal to the constraints that cooking at sea imposes. The Don Juan II's star followed within months; Anton called it recognition of the work done by the whole team since the restaurant opened the previous October, and said it confirmed the ambition to turn the Seine into an unmissable gastronomic address in Paris.

Insider tip

Boards at 19:45, Tuesday–Saturday; nearest stations Iéna and Alma–Marceau (line 9).

03The cooking

On board, Anton applies the same logic that built his reputation in the Bois de Boulogne and at the foot of the Eiffel Tower: a cuisine of product, kept simple, efficient and undisguised, as he has described it for the past twenty-five years. The five-course dinner changes with the seasons and is built around the structured, graphic plating Anton is known for, dishes composed less like courses than like still lifes, where decoration and flavour are the same gesture.

04What to order

The dinner menu, priced at 250 € excluding drinks when read in October 2026, opens with Le Crabe, curry-scented and lightened with a dill cream, crowned with caviar. It moves to Le Dashi, a warm, moelleux flan set with a fennel cream, then to the dish that has become Anton's signature on board: La Langoustine, served as a raviole with a Parmesan cream and a fine gold-leaf gelée. La Volaille follows, paired with foie gras and girolles cooked in fresh herbs, before the meal closes on Le Chocolat, a hot soufflé with ice cream made from Iranian pistachio.

05Wine, booking and the calendar

The wine list is composed specifically to follow Anton's graphic style of cooking, a small, carefully chosen cellar built to lift each course rather than compete with it. Don Juan II sails Tuesday to Saturday, for dinner only, boarding at 19:45 and returning to Port Debilly by 23:00; guests with dietary requirements are asked to flag them 48 hours ahead. On Bastille Day and New Year's Eve the itinerary is built around the city's fireworks and illuminations, with a live saxophone performance on 31 December and a glass of Champagne taken on the terrace as the Eiffel Tower lights up.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.