Origines – Julien Boscus's quiet triumph off the Champs-Élysées

On the corner where rue de Ponthieu meets rue Jean Mermoz, two streets back from the Champs-Élysées, Origines has become one of the most assured addresses in the 8th arrondissement. Chef Julien Boscus, born in Aveyron to a butcher father and a restaurateur mother, opened these doors on 15 October 2019 with his business partner Thibault Souchon, a friendship struck years earlier in Seoul. Before going it alone, Boscus had already earned a MICHELIN Star as chef at Les Climats in the 7th arrondissement, and had worked alongside Yannick Alléno at Le Meurice and Pierre Gagnaire in both Paris and Seoul. That pedigree shows in a dining room that reads as intimate rather than ceremonial, and in a kitchen that has earned Origines its own MICHELIN Star, confirmed again in the 2026 Guide, alongside three toques and a 15/20 score from Gault & Millau.

01The room and the setting

Origines sits exactly where its press describes it, at the corner of rue de Ponthieu and rue Jean Mermoz, a stone's throw from the avenue itself. Boscus wanted the room built in his own image: accueillant, where the cooking takes on a new dimension, combining fine produce and high technique, in a relaxed spirit. The result is navy-blue walls, tawny velvet armchairs and tables in pale blond wood — a decor that carries the weight of a star without ever feeling stiff.

By day the tables fill with the business lunch crowd from the surrounding streets; by evening the mood loosens into something closer to a neighbourhood dinner, despite the ambition on the plate.

02The chef

Julien Boscus is the son of a restaurateur mother and an Aveyronnais butcher father, a lineage that still shows in how he handles meat and game. His apprenticeship ran through some of the most demanding kitchens in France: L'Espérance under Marc Meneau and Le Pré Catelan under Frédéric Anton, before working with Yannick Alléno at Le Meurice and with Pierre Gagnaire in both Paris and Seoul.

Insider tip

Closed Saturday and Sunday; weekday lunch and dinner only, booking recommended.

As chef at Les Climats, he earned a MICHELIN Star in 2015, a first taste of recognition he would not see again under his own name until Origines was awarded its own Star. Launched in 2019, Origines received its first Star in the MICHELIN Guide's 2025 selection — a recognition that felt inevitable to many, including celebrated chefs Pierre Gagnaire and Yannick Alléno, both of whom Boscus once worked alongside.

03The cooking

Boscus describes his cuisine as classic French with subtle modern twists, built on seasonal produce handled whole, carcasses included, and dressed with precision rather than flourish. At its core, Origines is rooted in French terroir — 95% of its ingredients are sourced from France.

The kitchen states plainly on its own menu that every product is traceable, coming from short, reasoned and ethical supply chains — a working philosophy rather than a marketing line, and one that runs through dishes built around game, shellfish and root vegetables depending on the season.

04What to order

The Autumn 2026 carte opens with a warm feathered-game brioche, a small hot pâté of game and foie gras baked in a fine brioche crust, served with Treviso radicchio, Comice pear and Piedmont hazelnuts. Among the mains, hare from the Beauce is prepared two ways — a larded saddle cooked to the blood, with gratinated cabbage, almond powder and sweet-and-sour beetroot flowers, alongside a royale version with home-made buckwheat fettuccine — and Scottish grouse arrives wrapped in a seeded puff pastry with chard, Chasselas grapes and a peat-smoked sauce.

Fish-lovers should look to Saint Pierre from Finistère, stiffened in seaweed butter with Utah Beach cockles and Guémené andouille, or scallops from the Normandy coast gratinated with a citrus sabayon. To finish, there is a Grand Cru chocolate dessert made with Maison Lucifèves cacao from Aubrac, paired with dried cep ice cream and a Roussillon vin de voile caramel.

The tasting menu runs to four courses for €120 or six for €150, with a cheese supplement and optional wine pairings — Découverte or the more ambitious Héritage. At lunch, a shorter menu is served only at midday, three courses for €62 or four for €75.

05Wine and drinks

The cellar is one of the house's calling cards: 900 references, crowned Best Wine List in France by Terre de Vins and awarded a Best of Award of Excellence by Wine Spectator. As for wine, the list includes over 800 references, with an astonishing 99.9% coming from French vineyards — the number has since grown to 900 as the list has expanded.

Sommelier Adrien Butko, trained in Illkirch and under Philippe Mille at Les Crayères before a spell at Texture in London and years spent building another of Paris's great cellars alongside Pierre Sang, now runs the pairings at Origines. His selection leans on grower Champagne and the grandes maisons, classic and lesser-known Burgundy, the Rhône, Provence and Corsica, with a particular fondness for the wines of south-west France — a quiet homage to the chef's own roots.

06The neighbourhood

Origines sits in a pocket of the 8th arrondissement that has quietly become one of the most concentrated pockets of fine dining in the city. A wave of reinvestment — from MICHELIN-Starred restaurants to urban greening projects — is restoring the neighbourhood's creative pulse, giving it the highest concentration of MICHELIN Stars in Paris. Boscus's former mentors are practically neighbours: Pierre Gagnaire's three-Star restaurant on rue Balzac and Yannick Alléno's three-Star Pavillon Ledoyen both sit within walking distance, a reminder of how closely this stretch of the 8th still trains its own.

It is a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe and the lower end of the Champs-Élysées, making Origines as sensible a choice for a discreet business lunch as for an evening that starts with an aperitif nearby and ends, two streets later, with hare à la royale.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.