Pavyllon Paris – Alléno's open counter in the Champs-Élysées gardens

Pavyllon Paris occupies the garden level of Pavillon Ledoyen, the pavilion standing in the Champs-Élysées gardens where Yannick Alléno built his gastronomic empire. It is the third and most informal of his three restaurants under that one roof, opened in October 2019 as a counter-style dining room built around an open kitchen, and it earned its first MICHELIN Star only months later, in January 2020. Where the house upstairs plays at three-star formality, Pavyllon is Alléno's homage to the bistro he grew up cooking in, reworked with the sauce-making techniques — extraction, fermentation, cryoconcentration — that define his style across every address from Paris to Monte-Carlo, London and Lyon. Guests sit directly in front of the pass, watching dishes assembled a few inches away, in a room that turns from leafy terrace in summer to warm, lantern-lit garden room in winter. It holds one MICHELIN Star.

01The room and the setting

The interior is the work of Chahan Minassian, the designer behind several rooms at the Hôtel de Crillon, who built the restaurant around a bronze-patinated metallic wood counter stretching some fifteen metres between dining room and open kitchen, seating roughly thirty guests who face the brigade at work.

Velvet and suede upholster the seats, ceruse oak panels line the walls, and bands of glazed ceramic tiling are punctuated with smoked mirrors that catch reflections of the garden outside — a quiet nod to the greenery beyond the windows. A handful of tables line the bay windows for those who prefer a view over the counter theatre, with direct sightlines onto the Pavillon Ledoyen gardens.

02The chef

Yannick Alléno took over the concession of Pavillon Ledoyen in 2014 and created Alléno Paris, which earned three MICHELIN Stars within seven months of opening. He followed it in 2018 with L'Abysse, a sushi counter, before completing the trio with Pavyllon in 2019 — the third and final restaurant under the Ledoyen roof.

Insider tip

Open daily, smart dress required, Sunday brunch served, terrace changes with the seasons.

By 2020 the building carried six MICHELIN Stars across its three dining rooms, making Pavillon Ledoyen the most-starred independent restaurant complex in the world, with L'Abysse holding two stars and Pavyllon its single star. Desserts at Pavyllon are the work of pastry chef Maxime Vaslin, composed in full view of the counter.

03The cooking

The kitchen trades in the same sauce-work that runs through all of Alléno's restaurants, but loosened into something closer to bistro energy than grand gastronomy — dishes built around his modern sauces, worked like perfumes through extraction, fermentation and cryoconcentration, and plates that mix French technique with other culinary traditions, from teppanyaki cooking to Nordic and Italian touches arriving at the counter.

Signature plates include an iconic "Surf & Turf" built around Wagyu beef, and a black pepper-crusted beef fillet paired with Williams pear — the kind of pairing that plays, in the house's own words, with the codes of fine dining rather than following them.

04What to order

The à la carte runs through cold and hot starters, vegetable dishes, pasta and a short run of fish and meat, with recent seasonal cards featuring tuna tartare with French caviar grains, and a beef, lobster and tuna chirashi dressed with condiments and aromatic gels.

To finish, the pastry kitchen turns out plates such as a farmhouse cheese cream with coriander pesto and pan-fried cherries, or a rhubarb baked in a vanilla-sugar crust with elderflower jelly.

05When to go and booking

Pavyllon is open every day, for lunch from midday to 2.30pm and dinner from 7pm to 10.30pm, with a Sunday brunch service also running from midday to 2.30pm — a rarity among restaurants of this calibre in Paris. Smart dress is required. The terrace changes character with the seasons: a leafy, open-air garden table in summer, a warmer, enclosed garden room once the weather turns.

The restaurant lists an extract of its wine selection on its own site and is noted among MICHELIN's facilities for its interesting wine list, with valet parking available for guests arriving by car — useful given the address sits inside the gated gardens rather than directly on the avenue.

06The neighbourhood

Pavyllon sits inside the Carré Ledoyen, the garden square on the Champs-Élysées where a restaurant has stood since 1792, when Pierre-Michel Ledoyen first set up what began as a guinguette and became a meeting point for Revolutionary Paris, with guests including Robespierre and Napoleon Bonaparte passing through its doors.

The current neoclassical pavilion dates from 1842, built by the architect Jacques-Ignace Hittorff, and stands a short walk from Place de la Concorde and the Grand Palais, tucked into greenery that makes the address feel detached from one of the world's busiest avenues just beyond the trees.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.