L'Ours – Vincennes's one-star den of steel, copper and a stuffed bear

L'Ours occupies a quiet corner of the rue de l'Église in Vincennes, close to the château and the forest that once made this a royal hunting ground, home to a menagerie whose bears, lions and tigers were later sent to Versailles. Chef Jacky Ribault, who opened his first starred table, Qui Plume la Lune, in Paris's eleventh arrondissement in 2010, built this second address in 2018 entirely in his own image, from the stuffed brown bear that greets arrivals to the raw steel, concrete and copper that line the dining room. It holds one MICHELIN Star, awarded in 2019, within a year of opening, and in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide it stands as the sole starred restaurant in the whole of the Val-de-Marne. There is no printed carte: Ribault improvises each day's set menus from whatever his small producers, farmers and artisanal fishermen deliver that morning, letting the produce, not a recipe, decide the plate.

01The room and the setting

Getting to the table is part of the theatre. A long corridor, imagined like a bridle path overgrown with brambles, leads into a space built like a fairy-tale ballroom, dominated by a vast illuminated sculpture, with the master's own den – an open kitchen – waiting at the far end. Jacky Ribault designed it with his wife, Valérie Ribault, and architect Caroline Tissier, as a place that is at once approachable and concealed, its raw materials – steel, concrete, copper – left visible under carefully judged light.

Guests are met at the entrance by a large stuffed brown bear, which gives the restaurant its name before they have even sat down. Inside, the main room runs to some 300 square metres and seats thirty, with a boudoir corner and an open kitchen backed by a chef's table for six of the luckier diners. Every cover is dressed with its own touches: a hunting knife in a leather sheath, set beside a raw ceramic bread plate.

02The chef

Jacky Ribault trained in Brittany before working through Chamonix, Gstaad, Zurich, Tokyo and Sendai, a route that still shows in his instinct for Japanese restraint. In 2010 he opened Qui Plume la Lune in Paris's eleventh arrondissement, a restaurant that has carried a MICHELIN Star since 2014.

Insider tip

Open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner; booking essential, car park beneath the building.

At forty-eight, Ribault wanted a new challenge; Vincennes, meanwhile, was looking for a starred chef to anchor a new development, and after meeting the town's mayor he settled on the Îlot Fontenay for his second restaurant. L'Ours is, by his own account, built entirely to his own farming-rooted, share-first instincts, down to the bear that watches over the room.

03The cooking

There is deliberately no fixed menu. Ribault cooks on trust, letting nature stay omnipresent on the plate and allowing produce from small farmers, artisanal fishermen and Île-de-France growers to dictate the day's dishes rather than a pre-written card.

The results carry a quietly Japanese-influenced delicacy alongside more classical French technique – dashi broths, foie gras with cabbage and a sesame brioche feuilletée, or a fish raviole have all featured on past tastings, each built around raw, first-rate ingredients handled with precision rather than flourish.

04What to order

In place of a carte, L'Ours runs a ladder of daily set menus, each chosen for the whole table. At lunch, Le Pilier runs to three courses for €70 (Tuesday to Friday), while L'Aubinière stretches to five courses for €130. Dinner opens with La Roche-aux-Fées, three courses for €90 (Tuesday to Thursday), before Le Theil-de-Bretagne offers six courses for €170 and La Sapinière, built on exceptional ingredients, runs to eight courses for €270. A cheese selection is €30 and a surprise aperitif plate €50, as read on the restaurant's own site in October 2026.

05Wine and drinks

The cellar is dug straight into the ground beneath the dining room, a den in its own right holding around 300 references, reached as part of the same journey through the restaurant's thicket-like corridors. Each of the set menus can be matched with a wine pairing chosen by the in-house sommelier, a route worth taking given the scale of the list below.

06When to go and booking

L'Ours serves lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday throughout the year, closed Sunday and Monday. The MICHELIN Guide places it in its top price bracket, so this is an evening (or long lunch) to book ahead rather than chance. A public car park sits directly beneath the building on rue de Fontenay, open 24 hours, and the restaurant is a five-minute walk from both the Château de Vincennes stop on Metro Line 1 and the Vincennes stop on RER A.

07The neighbourhood

L'Ours sits two steps from the château de Vincennes, in the Val-de-Marne town that once held the royal menagerie before its animals were moved to Versailles – a history the restaurant's name and decor knowingly replay. In the 2026 MICHELIN Guide it remains the department's only starred address, carrying its star continuously since 2019 and standing, for now, alone in the local gastronomic landscape. Ribault's first restaurant, Qui Plume la Lune, remains open at 50 rue Amelot in Paris's eleventh arrondissement, also starred.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.