Le Matré – the Montmartre bistro built from two surnames

On a quiet stretch of rue Véron, just below the Abbesses, Le Matré occupies the kind of small Montmartre room that has long belonged to neighbourhood bistros: a few close-set tables, an open kitchen at the back, and a menu that is rewritten according to what arrives at the door that morning. The name is a fusion word, built from the surnames of the two people who run the place, Chloé Magel and Lucas Tresse, who took over this corner of the 18th arrondissement two years ago and trained together at Yves Camdeborde's L'Avant-Comptoir, the wine-bar annexe that has sent a generation of cooks into Paris's bistronomy scene. Gault&Millau now lists Le Matré among its 'Gourmet Restaurants' with a score of 12/20, and the MICHELIN Guide has it in its Paris selection. It is not a restaurant that performs for the room; it is one that spends its effort on the plate, on a card short enough to read in a breath.

01The room and the setting

Le Matré sits at 42 rue Véron, in the Abbesses quarter of Montmartre, on one of the steep, narrow streets that climb toward the highest point in Paris. The dining room follows the logic of the street itself: small, simple and unadorned, with an open kitchen in the back where the two owners work in view of the tables. There is no theatre to the decor, no attempt to dress the address up as anything grander than a neighbourhood bistro with ambitions on the plate rather than the walls.

02The chef and the owners

Chloé Magel runs the room while Lucas Tresse runs the kitchen, and both are alumni of Yves Camdeborde's L'Avant-Comptoir, the wine bar beside his Hôtel Relais Saint-Germain that has trained many of the cooks now reshaping Paris bistronomy from the inside. Two years ago the pair took over this address from a bistro called Vava and folded their own surnames together to name the new venture — Magel and Tresse becoming Le Matré. It is a small, personal gesture that sums up the place: two names, one kitchen, one short and constantly shifting card.

Insider tip

Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays; weekday lunch formulas from €25; natural wine list.

03The cooking

The kitchen calls its own style a cuisine de marché — a market cuisine that changes according to what the morning's deliveries bring, built on fresh, seasonal, mostly French and short-circuit produce rather than on a fixed repertoire. Lucas Tresse's approach favours ingredients left close to their natural state, so the work of the small producers the restaurant buys from stays visible on the plate rather than disguised under technique. Reviewers have found the card free of gimmicks even when the ingredients are very current: octopus salad with mint, ajo blanco, almonds and lovage oil; seared pork carpaccio with Caesar dressing, arugula, pecorino and capers; a Sicilian caponata; and a baba finished with Plougastel strawberry liqueur and buttermilk ice cream. In autumn the kitchen has turned to morels, chestnuts and hazelnuts bound in a creamy sauce, and at other times to a langoustine bisque given a Thai inflection among the starters.

04What to order

Because the menu is intentionally short and rewritten to match deliveries, what is on it one week may be gone the next — the kitchen leans on the chef's imagination as much as on the market. Dishes that have appeared include roast veal carpaccio with Caesar sauce, capers and Parmesan, and lamb navarin with spring vegetables and wild garlic pistou, alongside the octopus salad and pork carpaccio noted by Gault&Millau. For dessert, the Plougastel strawberry baba with buttermilk ice cream is the closest thing the restaurant has to a signature, and a vegetarian option is always kept on the card.

05Wine and drinks

The wine list is built around French vineyards, with a particular focus on natural wine — bottles chosen to match a kitchen that already leans toward unforced, ingredient-led cooking. It is a short list rather than an encyclopaedic one, in keeping with the rest of the restaurant's instincts: fewer choices, made carefully.

06When to go and booking

Le Matré opens for lunch and dinner on Mondays and from Thursday to Sunday, from midday to 2pm and from 7pm to 10pm; it is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. On weekday lunchtimes the kitchen offers set formulas — starter and main, or main and dessert, for €25, or all three courses for €29 — while in the evening diners work from the full seasonal card, where starters run roughly €10–13, mains €19–29, and cheese or dessert €9. Given the size of the room, booking ahead by phone or through the restaurant's own website is worth doing, especially for evening tables.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.