Les Parisiens – the brasserie where Joyce once wrote Ulysses

Les Parisiens occupies the restaurant entrance, at number 1, of the Pavillon Faubourg Saint-Germain, a five-star hotel built from three joined townhouses on the rue du Pré-aux-Clercs, between the Seine and the Café de Flore. The buildings date to 1642, and both T.S. Eliot and James Joyce once lived there, Joyce finishing Ulysses on the premises. It is in homage to his story collection Dubliners that the hotel's restaurant takes its name, and chef Thibault Sombardier, a figurehead of Parisian haute-bistronomy, who signs the carte with executive chef Matthieu Pirola. Les Parisiens opened in mid-April 2022, replacing the Kult restaurant that had occupied the former Saint Hotel. The MICHELIN Guide lists it as Selected for 2026, without a star, for a room that plays the luxury-brasserie genre with conviction and a kitchen that treats French tradition with a light, current touch.

01The room and the setting

Architect Vincent Bastie joined the three historic buildings into one address, while interior designer Didier Benderli - also behind the Chevalier group's Pavillon de la Reine and Pavillon des Lettres - shaped the public rooms. Inside Les Parisiens, wood panelling, large mirrors, mosaic floors, velvet banquettes, gilding and black marble tables combine into a room that reads as elegant, slightly retro and distinctly cosy.

A covered terrace is set up for the warmer months, and the dining room sits on the corner of rue du Pré-aux-Clercs and rue de l'Université, a few minutes' walk from the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the riverbank - the heart of the Rive Gauche quarter the hotel is named for.

02The chef

Thibault Sombardier was born in Lyon in 1984, trained at the hotel school in Orléans and did an early stage with Marc Meneau in Vézelay before joining Alain Dutournier's brigade at Carré des Feuillants in Paris. He moved through Le Meurice and Le Trou Gascon before taking the stoves at Antoine, the seafood address on avenue de New York facing the Eiffel Tower, in 2013.

Insider tip

Open daily; lunch set menu Monday-Friday; covered terrace in summer.

Antoine earned a MICHELIN star in 2015 under his cooking, a distinction he held until the restaurant closed for good in July 2020. Sombardier is also familiar to French television audiences as a finalist of season five of Top Chef, where he lost out to Pierre Augé, and he continues to run Mensae in the 19th arrondissement and Sellae in the 13th. At Les Parisiens he signs the carte together with executive chef Matthieu Pirola.

03The cooking

Sombardier calls the register here haute-bistronomy: recipes meant to look simple and read easily, built on careful technical groundwork and close attention to seasonal produce. It is a neo-brasserie style, lively and modern, yet firmly anchored in French tradition rather than reinventing it.

On the current winter carte that translates into onion soup gratinée, puff-pastry snails in parsley butter, a pâté en croûte with pistachio and foie gras, and mains built around vol-au-vent, grilled whole fish and classic sauced meats - the register of a serious Paris brasserie rather than a tasting-menu dining room.

04What to order

Among the dishes to share, the carte lists Gillardeau oysters no.3 with shallot vinegar and seaweed butter, a "Croque Yoyo" of Saint-Nectaire with truffle butter, and the duck pâté en croûte with pistachio foie gras and pickled vegetables.

From the sea comes the vol-au-vent "Paris-Deauville" of prawns, mussels and monkfish in a Normandy-style sauce, and a whole grilled daurade dressed à la grenobloise for two. On the meat side, the beef tenderloin comes with a two-pepper sauce and potato wafers, alongside veal sweetbread with a bacon-and-lentil ragout and a blanquette de veau to share.

To finish: a vanilla millefeuille with roasted apples, a warm 70% chocolate mousse with hazelnut praline and buckwheat ice cream, a Mont-Blanc-style soufflé ordered at the start of the meal, or a floating island to share with caramelised pecans.

05Wine and drinks

The cellar is built to be eclectic rather than safe: winemaker estates, biodynamic bottles, parcel-specific cuvées and fine references among the great French appellations, alongside champagnes from both growers and the grand houses. It is, in short, a fine and varied list with some serious bottles tucked among the classics.

06When to go and booking

Les Parisiens is open every day of the week, from 12.00 to 14.15 for lunch and 19.00 to 22.15 for dinner, and it welcomes walk-in guests as well as hotel residents. A simplified lunch menu runs Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays, at 39 euros for two courses or 45 euros for three, drinks not included.

Those staying for a cocktail afterwards can move through to the adjoining Bar James Joyce, open daily from late afternoon into the small hours. For dinner bookings, the restaurant can be reached directly on its own line, separate from the hotel reception.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.