Paulownia – the Paris bistro named after a vanished tree

Paulownia sits at 15 rue des Vignoles, in the quiet streets of Paris's 20th arrondissement near Nation, named after a tree that is no longer there. Chef Geoffrey Belin and sommelier Tess Duteil, who met while working for Alain Passard at L'Arpège, opened the restaurant in 2023, building each day's menu entirely around what arrives that morning from small producers and from small Breton fishing boats. There is no printed à la carte here: Paulownia serves only tasting menus, a daily Carte Blanche that leans hard on vegetables without ever treating them as a side dish, built from whatever the day's deliveries decide the kitchen will cook. It is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, recognition less for any single signature plate than for a kitchen that refuses to repeat itself from one service to the next.

01The room and the setting

Paulownia's dining room plays at being a country inn that wandered into the city. The restaurant's own description calls it an écrin — a little jewel-case — built to feel like an auberge de campagne rather than a Paris address, with wainscoting, parquet and a curved bar at its centre.

The name is a nod to history: at 15 rue des Vignoles, a young paulownia tree had already cracked its way through the pavement opposite before Belin and Duteil took this as a sign that this was the spot, and named their restaurant for the tree growing against the window across the street.

02The chef and the sommelier

Geoffrey Belin and Tess Duteil met while working together at Alain Passard's L'Arpège, the couple whose love of vegetables carried straight through into the restaurant they would later open on their own account. They opened Paulownia in 2023, Belin running the kitchen while Duteil runs the floor and the cellar.

Insider tip

Open Tuesday–Saturday for dinner, Friday and Saturday for lunch; tasting menus only, booking by phone advised.

The house describes itself as committed to small-scale, sustainable farming, built on produce that is fresh, healthy and local — a position that shapes the kitchen as much as any technique Belin picked up in a starred dining room.

03The cooking

There is no fixed menu to quote, because the kitchen builds its Carte Blanche fresh every day, dictated by the morning's deliveries from local producers and from small-boat Breton fishermen, with vegetables given real, central weight rather than treated as garnish. Dinner runs to around ten courses, for €115; a shorter lunch is served only on Fridays and Saturdays, five courses for €55 or eight for €85 (read on the restaurant's own site in October 2026).

On past visits, that daily rotation has produced a warm, flaky pâté chaud feuilleté au cochon filled with tender pork, a brill (barbue) with beurre blanc and squid, and a minestrone aux coquillages thick with mussels and fresh herbs. There has also been a vegetarian millefeuille built with the same seriousness as any meat course, and a trou normand of apple sorbet set adrift in a pool of Calvados to close the meal. The menu also adapts for vegetarian diets and for pregnant guests.

04Wine and drinks

The cellar is Duteil's domain, built around low-intervention growers rather than blue-chip labels: a wild red called Direct from the Gard, made by Paul Chabal; an oxidative-leaning Alsace riesling, Grain de Sable, from Léo Dirringer; and a chenin from Anjou, Le Petit Chemin, by Benoît Courault. Pairings are built to follow the kitchen's daily swings rather than a fixed format, matched to whatever Belin has decided to cook that night.

05The neighbourhood, when to go and booking

Paulownia sits within reach of Nation, served by the Buzenval, Avron and Nation metro stations. The restaurant is open for dinner Tuesday to Saturday, with lunch served only on Fridays and Saturdays; because the Carte Blanche is fixed and the room is small, booking ahead by telephone is the sensible way in.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.