Oxte – Mexican memory and French technique behind the Étoile

Just off Place de l'Étoile, in the quiet residential streets behind the Arc de Triomphe, Oxte occupies a small dining room at 5 rue Troyon, in the Ternes quarter of Paris's 17th arrondissement. It opened in 2018, built from the parallel journeys of two Mexican chefs, Kike Casarrubias and Mon Estrada, who met while studying cooking in Mexico, trained separately in France, and eventually combined their visions into a single project. Husband and wife, they named the restaurant Oxte by joining Oxtotitlán in Guerrero and Tenango del Valle in the State of México, the villages where Casarrubias's own parents were born. It holds one MICHELIN Star, awarded on 18 January 2021, on the third anniversary of its opening, and remains, by most accounts, the only Mexican kitchen in France to carry one.

01The room and the setting

The dining room is deliberately small, built for a handful of tables rather than volume, set into a stretch of rue Troyon lined with neighbourhood bistros and parking garages, two minutes from the Arc de Triomphe.

Its décor draws, by the chefs' own account, on the geometry and warm colour blocks of Mexican architect Luis Barragán, an idea credited to Mon Estrada from the earliest planning of the restaurant. Some of the tableware travels directly from Mexico, mixed with pieces made by a Portuguese ceramicist working at Studio Neves. Guides that have visited describe the atmosphere as cosy rather than showy, a room built for quiet dinners more than spectacle.

02The chefs

Kike Casarrubias describes himself as the grandson of a butcher, raised surrounded by ingredients and flavour from childhood, who trained first in Mexico and then in some of the most demanding kitchens of European haute cuisine. In Paris that meant stints at Le Crillon and Le Cinq at the Hôtel George V, followed by a sous-chef post under chef Akrame Benallal in Hong Kong, before Gault & Millau named him a Young Talent.

Insider tip

Open Monday–Friday for lunch and dinner only; book directly by phone or online.

Mon Estrada studied cooking in both Mexico and France and kept working at La Grande Épicerie Paris Rive Droite even as Oxte found its footing, before joining her husband at the stoves full time. The two now run the kitchen as equals, each dish built from their own memory and shared history rather than from either cuisine alone.

03The cooking

The kitchen moves between two cuisines that UNESCO lists as world heritage in their own right, French gastronomy and Mexican cuisine, treating chilli as a way of deepening flavour rather than simply adding heat. Casarrubias keeps close to the tastes of his own childhood when it comes to dessert: an avocado and mezcal granita arrives as a trompe-l'oeil, and a tangerine mousse is built around buñuelo, clementine jam and a horchata sauce. The same idea, memory translated into French technique, runs through three tasting menus that each go further than the last.

04What to order

Three tasting menus structure the evening, each with an optional food and beverage pairing. The five-course Discovery Menu, at 135€ (pairing 75€), gives a concise first reading of the kitchen's identity. The seven-course Tasting Menu, at 165€ (pairing 110€), goes further into the same techniques. The most personal of the three, the Recuerdos Menu, at 195€ (pairing 135€), is built directly from Casarrubias and Estrada's own memories, course by course, and shifts as those memories do. A Chef's Table seating lets guests watch the pass directly, guided by the chefs through the thinking behind each plate.

05When to go and booking

Oxte serves lunch and dinner Monday to Friday only, with seatings from 12:15pm to 1:30pm and from 7:15pm to 9pm; it is closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Reservations run through the restaurant's own website or by telephone, on +33 1 45 75 15 15.

In 2026, the same two chefs opened a second, more relaxed project in Barcelona, Papalote, without stepping away from the Paris kitchen that made their name.

06The neighbourhood

The address sits in the Ternes quarter of the 17th arrondissement, around 700 metres from the Champs-Élysées and 800 metres from the Arc de Triomphe, with Parc Monceau a little further on. It is a residential, moneyed corner of Paris, built for discreet dinners rather than passing tourist trade, and Oxte has held its position here, among the bistros and parking garages of rue Troyon, since 2018, becoming a standard-bearer for Mexican-influenced fine dining in the city.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.