FOGO – where Paris's grandest braise shares a kitchen with a MICHELIN Star

Fogo sits behind an unassuming shopfront on rue Meissonier, in the quiet streets of the Plaine Monceau a few steps from Parc Monceau. In 2023 the Brazilian chef Raphaël Rego installed a double restaurant on this spot, pairing a tasting-menu room with a looser, braise-led bistro he named Fogo. When he left, two Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, chef Guillaume Goupil and maître d'hôtel Yoann Grégory, took over the whole address without breaking the format: the gastronomic room became Épisodes, now carrying one MICHELIN Star, while Fogo remained the freer, livelier side of the same kitchen. The embers here are not decoration – the Josper grill that drives the menu sits at the centre of the room – and the MICHELIN Guide lists Fogo itself among its Selected addresses. It is a bistronomic table built around fire, with a wine-literate crowd from the smart 17th arrondissement filling its tables most nights of the week.

01The room and the setting

The décor is the work of architect Arnaud Behzadi, who shaped both rooms around veined marble, wood and stone, and imported a series of chairs inspired by the Brazilian designer Sergio Rodrigues to complete the look. Across the walls at Fogo runs a large fresco by the artist Florence Bamberger, who drew on the woodcut world of the Brazilian artist José Francisco Borges while adding her own touch, lit by wall lamps designed by Cathy Crinon.

The open kitchen sits to one side of the room, where two broad grills and a charcoal-fired Josper let diners watch the cooks work the embers mid-service. It is a setting that reads as chic rather than rustic – no zinc bar, no exposed brick – closer to a grown-up dining room than to a classic Paris grill house.

02The chef

Guillaume Goupil arrived at Fogo in October 2024, bringing a career built in some of Paris's grandest kitchens. He started as a chef de partie at the Domaine des Hauts de Loire in Onzain in 2006, then spent several years at the Faventia inside the Four Seasons Terre Blanche, before a year in a private London club. Back in Paris in 2013 he joined La Scène at the Hôtel du Prince de Galles under Stéphanie Le Quellec, rising to first sous-chef, then took over Le Baudelaire at the Burgundy Paris in 2016, a post he held until 2022, the year he was named a Meilleur Ouvrier de France. A spell as executive chef of the Domaine de Fontenille in the Luberon followed, before he returned to the capital to lead the kitchens on rue Meissonier.

Insider tip

Open Mon–Sat; book ahead for lunch and dinner service times.

In the dining room, Yoann Grégory brings his own Meilleur Ouvrier de France title in service, a career that has taken in Flocon de Sel, La Dame de Pic and Yam Tcha, and that began on this very address as part of the opening team of the original Oka-Fogo. Together the two men give Fogo a seriousness its relaxed, bistro-ish mood might otherwise disguise.

03The cooking

Fire, for Goupil, is treated as a cooking method rather than a theme: the kitchen's double-grid Josper lets cooks control exactly how close a piece of meat or fish sits to the embers, while a dedicated maturation chamber ages proteins before they reach the grill. Meat on the menu is sourced mostly from French producers, and the card runs from small, shareable plates – sardines grilled over the Josper with labneh and piri-piri, or smoked beef picanha to pick at with your fingers – through to bone marrow with a mustard-sage condiment and grilled veal sweetbreads finished with a harissa-spiked jus.

For two or more, the restaurant also offers whole pieces sold by weight and cooked slowly over the braise: a classic côte de bœuf, a more exclusive cut described simply as the pièce de bœuf spéciale, a lamb shoulder confit with za'atar, or a whole line-caught sea bass, depending on what the market brings that day.

04What to order

From the à la carte menu, the sardines grilled over the Josper with labneh, a vegetable vierge and piri-piri (€17) make a sharp, smoky starter, alongside the bone marrow with its mustard-sage condiment and toast (€20). Among the mains, the Fogo entrecôte (around 250g) comes simply with home-made fries and a shallot sauce, with the option to add girolles, while the grilled veal sweetbreads and the whole blue Breton lobster grilled over the Josper with basil gnocchi sit at the top of the card. To finish, the Saint-Honoré Tatin and the chocolate-vanilla millefeuille are the two classic desserts worth saving room for.

05Épisodes, next door

Through the same kitchen, Épisodes occupies the site's other dining room: an intimate space for sixteen covers, open for dinner only from Tuesday to Friday, built around a single five-course tasting menu with an optional wine pairing. It took over from Oka in November 2024 under the same two Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, and carries the MICHELIN Star that Fogo's own braise-led cooking helped set the stage for. Guests who want the full tasting-menu evening book Épisodes separately; those after a looser, grill-driven dinner stay at Fogo.

06The neighbourhood, when to go and booking

Rue Meissonier runs through the Plaine Monceau, a residential corner of the 17th arrondissement near the Wagram métro station on line 3, named after the nineteenth-century painter Ernest Meissonier. The address itself has form in the restaurant world: it was previously home to chef Christophe Saintagne's Papillon before the Oka-Fogo project moved in.

Fogo serves lunch and dinner Monday to Saturday, with reservations taken for 12:15–14:00 and 19:15–22:30. For private groups, the restaurant can set aside the Alcôve for five to six guests, offer its vaulted wine cellar, the Œnothèque, for up to ten, or be privatised entirely for a seated dinner or standing reception.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.