NESO – Guillaume Sanchez's blind tasting on rue Papillon

On rue Papillon, in the 9th arrondissement, NESO serves no printed menu at all. The only decision asked of guests before the meal begins is whether they have allergies, intolerances or food phobias, after which the kitchen alone decides what follows across seven or ten courses. Behind the stoves is Guillaume Sanchez, a chef born in 1990 in Bordeaux who trained as a pastry apprentice before becoming one of the most talked-about contestants of Top Chef's eighth season in 2017. He closed his first restaurant, Nomos, near Sacré-Cœur, in 2018 to open what was first called NE/SO, a contraction of Nord-Est/Sud-Ouest, the orientation judged ideal for the fermentation cellar beneath this 36-cover room at 3 rue Papillon. Nine months later, in January 2019, it was awarded one MICHELIN Star, a distinction NESO still holds today, run on a kitchen language of fermented vegetables, cold-steam extraction and a wine list written like a manifesto.

01The room and the setting

The dining room reads like a transformation rather than a decoration: a futuristic lair that mixes contrasting materials, wood, copper, leather and exposed brick, built around an open kitchen counter. Guests sit at round, pale-wood tables that give the thirty-six-cover room the feel of a cocoon rather than a stage, a deliberate softening of what is, underneath, one of the more technical kitchens in the 9th arrondissement.

Seats at the counter put diners close to the pass, where cold-steam extractions and fermentation jars are as much part of the room's theatre as the plates themselves.

02The chef

Guillaume Sanchez trained for six years through the Compagnons du Devoir in pastry and bakery before working in Parisian houses including Ladurée, Fauchon and Dalloyau, a pastry background that still shows in the precision of his plating. In 2014 he appeared on the television competition Qui sera le prochain grand pâtissier?, then in 2015 opened his first restaurant, Nomos, near Sacré-Cœur in the 18th arrondissement. In 2017, at the age of twenty-seven, he published a book, Humains, setting out the convictions behind his cooking, the same year he competed on the eighth season of Top Chef on M6.

Insider tip

No fixed menu; book ahead for the 36-cover room near Cadet and Poissonnière Métro.

He closed Nomos in February 2018 and, within two months, opened NE/SO on rue Papillon in the 9th arrondissement, a thirty-six-cover room named for the compass orientation considered ideal for fermentation chambers and wine cellars. Nine months after opening, in January 2019, the restaurant earned its MICHELIN Star.

03The cooking

There is no carte at NESO, only the blind tasting itself, offered as a mystery menu of seven or ten courses built on cold-steam extraction and fermented vegetables. The leap-of-faith format is announced bluntly at the start of the meal, when guests are simply asked about allergies, intolerances or food phobias before the first plate arrives unannounced.

Fermentation is the spine of the kitchen's identity: roughly ninety per cent of the vegetables that reach the table, carrots and Jerusalem artichokes among them, have been transformed by months of fermentation, a technique Sanchez extends even to unlikely ingredients such as spent coffee grounds, used to lift richer, more precious proteins.

04Wine and drinks

The cellar is the domain of Manuel Peyrondet, a Meilleur Ouvrier de France sommelier whose list is written with unusually long, descriptive tasting notes rather than bare vintages and appellations, a wine programme built to decode, course by course, a kitchen that otherwise gives nothing away in advance.

05The neighbourhood

Rue Papillon sits in the quieter stretch of the 9th arrondissement, between the grand boulevards and the Faubourg-Poissonnière, within easy walking distance of the Cadet and Poissonnière Métro stations on line seven. It is a part of Paris better known for wholesale jewellers and modest brasseries than for tasting menus, which makes the quiet intensity of NESO's dining room feel more private than its address would suggest.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.