Le Faham – a Réunion orchid blooms on rue Cardinet

In Paris's Batignolles quarter, on a quiet stretch of rue Cardinet in the 17th arrondissement, Le Faham has held its ground since June 2019, opened on the site of the old restaurant Epicure 108. It takes its name from an orchid native to Réunion, prized for its scent of almonds. Kelly Rangama, a 2017 contestant on Top Chef, runs the kitchen; her husband, pastry chef Jérôme Devreese, who trained through several Parisian palace kitchens, runs the sweet side of the menu. Barely six months after opening, in January 2020, the Guide awarded the restaurant a star, making Rangama the first woman from Réunion to hold the distinction. It holds one MICHELIN Star today, and the project has changed little in character since: a couple's restaurant, cooked over an open stove, built on produce sent from the Indian Ocean rather than imagined from a distance.

01The room and the setting

Rangama and Devreese drew up the dining room themselves, down to the tones and the shapes, so that the space would answer to their own idea of the restaurant rather than anyone else's template. The kitchen opens directly onto the room, which they describe as a deliberate choice: it lets them be seen by guests, but more importantly lets them oversee service in the dining room and talk with the people eating there while the pans are still moving.

02The chef

Kelly Rangama was born in Massy but raised in Réunion, where her father passed on an early love of Creole cooking, and she grew up between the Plaine Saint-Paul and Sainte-Marie. After training at the Ferrandi school in Paris and earning her CAP, she worked under Michel Portos and then spent seven years alongside Thomas Boullault at L'Arôme in Paris before striking out on her own.

Insider tip

Lunch Wed–Fri, dinner Mon–Fri; closed weekends. Groups of 10+ can book shared lunches Mon/Tue.

Her route to a restaurant of her own ran through television: in 2017 she appeared on season eight of Top Chef on M6, exposure that led her to host Voyages et délices by Chef Kelly, a culinary tour of France's overseas territories. The honours have followed the restaurant since: the Michelin star awarded in January 2020 made her the first Réunionese woman to hold the distinction, Gault & Millau has given Le Faham two toques, and in December 2025 she was made a Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite.

03The cooking

Jérôme Devreese came to pastry by way of the palaces — the Prince de Galles, La Réserve and Le Bristol, where he trained under Eric Frechon — before taking charge of the dessert course at Le Faham. Sourcing is not a footnote to the cooking here; it is close to the whole point of it. Kelly works with small producers back on Réunion for tamarillo, taro, thyme, ginger and pineapple, and hearts of palm arrive sent directly from growers rather than out of a tin, so the kitchen can speak precisely to where each vegetable began its journey.

04What to order

The current carte is built around two tasting formats, both priced for two guests rather than per head: a four-sequence Menu Insulaire, and a longer, six-course Menu Envol, each available with or without a wine pairing. A shorter three-course lunch menu for two is also offered on weekday middays. On occasional evenings the kitchen opens a takeaway edition — the most recent, on 17 September 2026, ran to squid tagliatelle with kohlrabi and Réunion green pepper in a coconut-milk velouté, Mediterranean red tuna with confit ginger, mimosa egg and fried angel-hair pastry over sushi rice and sweet-and-sour carrot, and a chestnut biscuit with red-berry compote and whipped vanilla ganache.

05Wine and drinks

The wine list is Jérôme Devreese's own domain, built largely around growers from Burgundy, the region where he grew up. Alongside it sits a house line of rum arrangé bottled under the name L'Arrangé Réunionnais, in flavours such as tizane, coffee (M. Kafévani) and coconut sweet (Bonbon Coco), as well as a nine-year-old aged Reimonenq rum for guests who want something closer to the source.

06The neighbourhood

Rue Cardinet has quietly become something of a gourmet strip in the Batignolles: Le Faham shares the street with Jacques Faussat's dining room and the more recent bistro Rooster. The nearest stop is Pont Cardinet, a couple of hundred metres from the door, with Métro Wagram also within easy reach for anyone arriving by metro rather than train.

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