La Scène – Stéphanie Le Quellec's stage on avenue Matignon

On avenue Matignon, in the quiet grid of embassies and private galleries that separates the Champs-Élysées from the Élysée Palace, Stéphanie Le Quellec opened her own restaurant on 9 October 2019, seven months after stepping away from the two-starred kitchen she had run inside the Hôtel Prince de Galles. She called it La Scène again: the name had already won her two MICHELIN Stars once, at the hotel, and on 27 January 2020 it did so a second time, at her own address. It holds two MICHELIN Stars today. The dining room sits in what was once an art gallery, and the kitchen line is built into the room itself, so the pass is visible to every table rather than hidden behind a door. Le Quellec, one of a small number of women to hold two Michelin stars in France, built the place to work on her own terms after years of cooking for someone else's house.

01The room and the setting

The address at 32 avenue Matignon had a previous life as an art gallery before Le Quellec took it over for her gastronomic dining room. The decor is the work of architectural duo Toro and Liautard, who gave the space a sophisticated, intimate register built around an open kitchen that lets guests watch the brigade work rather than seal it away in the back of house. Downstairs is the two-starred table; at street level, La Scène also runs a separate bistrot for weekday lunches, a lighter, shorter-carte counterpart to the gastronomic room below.

The effect, as the MICHELIN Guide notes, is a rare informality for a two-starred address: the vibe is relaxed both in the kitchen and in the dining room, and guests are encouraged to simply enjoy the moment rather than observe any particular ceremony.

02The chef

Stéphanie Le Quellec, born Lecocq in Enghien-les-Bains in 1981, came up through the strictest French kitchens: at not yet twenty she worked under Meilleur Ouvrier de France Philippe Legendre at the George V restaurant in Paris, where she also met her future husband and kitchen partner, David Le Quellec. Cooking since the age of fourteen, she went on to the Var and to Éric Briffard's kitchens before winning the second season of Top Chef on French television in 2011, a victory that pushed her into the public eye.

Insider tip

Weekdays only, lunch and dinner; reservations open three months in advance.

In 2013 she became executive chef of La Scène, the gastronomic restaurant of the Hôtel Prince de Galles on avenue George V, taking her first MICHELIN Star there within nine months. A second star followed in February 2019, and a few weeks later she left the hotel to go it alone. She opened her own La Scène on avenue Matignon on 9 October 2019 and, within months, on 27 January 2020, the new address was awarded two MICHELIN Stars outright. David Le Quellec, who had spent several years in the kitchens of the Moulin Rouge, later joined her team, making La Scène a genuine family project.

03The cooking

La Scène's own menus are built around produce from the sea: fish, crustaceans and shellfish are, in the kitchen's own words, the essence of Stéphanie Le Quellec's cooking, and the house keeps faith with that identity rather than diverting from it. The MICHELIN Guide describes her menus as composed of varying numbers of courses, framed as "acts", dishes that can look simple on the plate but have been endlessly reworked behind the scenes, with big, generous sauces often lifted by a splash of aged sherry vinegar.

Her signature dish is a red mullet she keeps adjusting rather than fixing in place, a constantly tweaked recipe that has become one of the table's reference points. Pastry gets its own moment: the Guide singles out a talented pastry chef and a sweet course built to be genuinely memorable rather than an afterthought to the main menu.

04What to order

Beyond the red mullet, expect the kitchen to lean hard on seasonal seafood and shellfish, in keeping with the house's stated philosophy that fish and crustaceans anchor every menu, lunch and dinner alike.

The ground-floor bistrot, open to a shorter, more informal carte at weekday lunch only, is the easier way into the same kitchen's cooking for anyone not ready to commit to the full gastronomic sitting downstairs.

05When to go and booking

La Scène keeps a deliberately short working week: the gastronomic restaurant serves lunch from 12.15pm to 1.15pm and dinner from 7.15pm to 8.45pm, Monday to Friday only, with no weekend service. Reservations for the gastronomic table open three months in advance, and the house asks that guests respect their booking time, reserving the right not to honour a table left more than fifteen minutes late. The separate bistrot runs weekday lunches from 12.15pm to 1.45pm on its own, shorter carte.

06The neighbourhood

Avenue Matignon sits in the heart of Paris's 8th arrondissement, a few streets back from the bustle of the Champs-Élysées and within easy walking distance of the Arc de Triomphe and the Galeries Lafayette Champs-Élysées. It is a discreet, moneyed stretch of private galleries, ministries and townhouses rather than a tourist thoroughfare, which suits a restaurant built to be watched from the inside rather than from the street.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.