Ken Yamamoto – a French-Japanese table off Place Victor Hugo

In the quiet grid of streets around Place Victor Hugo, in the heart of the 16th arrondissement, Ken Yamamoto has occupied 144 rue de la Pompe since January 2024. The address used to be Juan, chef Tadahiko Kinjo's restaurant, and is now run by Kenichi “Ken” Yamamoto, a chef born in Tokyo who spent a decade in Japanese kitchens before moving to France to widen his range. Ken Yamamoto is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, a mark of a kitchen that works quietly rather than loudly, matching classic French saucework with techniques borrowed from the chef's own country – miso, dashi, yuzu, umeshu – course by course. Two menus frame the experience, a shorter one at lunch and a longer tasting sequence at dinner that changes with the seasons, and the chef, by his own account, treats sauce as the real signature of every plate he sends out.

01The room and the setting

Before Yamamoto arrived, the same narrow room on rue de la Pompe belonged to another Japanese chef: Tadahiko Kinjo's restaurant Juan, a very different, more traditionally Japanese kitchen, occupied the address before him.

The French dining guide Lebey describes today's dining room as light and airy, limited to a handful of well-spaced tables, and notes that the chef likes to come out and greet guests himself, sometimes serving dishes to the table in person.

02The chef

Kenichi Yamamoto was born in Tokyo and began his career there in 1998, spending a decade in Japanese kitchens before crossing to France to broaden his range. In Paris he trained at Le Relais d'Auteuil under Patrick Pignol, then spent three years as sous-chef at Passiflore alongside Roland Durand, a Meilleur Ouvrier de France.

Insider tip

Open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner; closed Sunday and Monday. Booking recommended, allergies flagged in advance

The decisive years came afterwards: five seasons at the side of Jean-Louis Nomicos, first in his own restaurant and then as executive chef of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, cooking for major events and an exacting clientele. Those years shaped a style that keeps French technique as its backbone and lets Japan in through specific, deliberate details rather than wholesale reinvention.

03The cooking

Yamamoto's own account of his food centres on sauce, which he treats as the element carrying a dish's real identity. His stated signature dish is a foie gras prepared in Saikyo style, echoed in a version served with daikon softened in dashi that has appeared on past menus.

Other dishes recorded from the kitchen include a cucumber-and-rose-water soup, a marinated mackerel tartlet with pomelo and parmesan-and-charcoal gougères served as canapés, followed by a chilled edamame velouté and a mikan sea bream with white asparagus and a trout-roe sauce.

04What to order

At lunch, the «Découverte» menu runs through an amuse-bouche and a choice of starter, main and dessert for €55; one sitting recorded by Gault&Millau moved from a bonito tataki tartare to rabbit stuffed with olives and mashed potato in a red wine sauce, finishing on a shiso ginjo umeshu sorbet.

Dinner is a fixed «Dégustation» sequence – canapés, amuse-bouche, starter, fish, meat, pre-dessert, dessert – that the kitchen rewrites every month in step with the seasons, priced at €116.

05When to go, booking and the neighbourhood

Ken Yamamoto opens Tuesday to Saturday, for lunch between midday and 2pm and dinner between 7.30pm and 9.30pm; it is closed on Sundays and Mondays. The kitchen asks to be told of allergies when booking and is upfront that it offers no children's menu and does not adapt portions for younger guests.

The room sits in Passy, a few streets from Jean-Louis Nomicos's own restaurant on avenue Bugeaud and from Stella on avenue Victor Hugo – a reminder of how small and connected this corner of the 16th arrondissement's dining scene really is.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.