Penati al Baretto – Milanese discipline facing the Invalides

Facing the gardens of the Invalides in the 7th arrondissement, Penati al Baretto is one of the few genuinely Italian gastronomic tables on the Paris Left Bank, built around the cooking of chef Alberico Penati since he moved his restaurant from near the place de l'Étoile to this address on boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg. It is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, a reputation that traces back to his very first restaurant, which earned a star only six months after opening. The dining room is spacious and bright, panelled in warm contemporary wood with furniture brought over from Italy, and in summer its terrace opens onto the esplanade that runs towards Napoleon's tomb. Penati cooks without concession to fashion: fish carpaccio, seafood antipasti, handmade pasta such as tagliatelle with pheasant ragù and white Alba truffle, and classic desserts like a hazelnut ice cream made with Piedmont nuts, all built from ingredients sourced through long-standing French and Italian suppliers.

01The room and the setting

The dining room is described by the house itself as spacious and light, its contemporary wood panelling set off by furniture imported from Italy, a deliberate break from the trattoria clichés that many Italian tables in Paris lean on. Tables are dressed with linen and fresh flowers, and the service is attentive without theatre.

The real prize is outside. Finding the restaurant in summer with its terrace on the great esplanade facing Napoleon's tomb is a pure pleasure, a view few other Left Bank addresses, Italian or French, can claim.

02The chef

Alberico Penati comes from Casatenovo in the Brianza, north of Milan, and trained under chef Angelo Paracucchi at Le Carpaccio inside the Royal Monceau in Paris before a spell at Harry's Bar in London. He then returned to Paris to open his own restaurant, in partnership with Pier Silli, cooking food drawn from Italy's great gourmet regions.

Insider tip

Closed Sundays and Monday; terrace seating is limited, book ahead for summer lunches.

Before Tour-Maubourg, Alberico Penati, the travelling man from Bergamo, was at home on the ground floor of the Hôtel de Vigny, under the Baretto sign, and kept the same sign when he moved just behind the Invalides, into the former Thiou. The restaurant's style — and its name — travelled with him from the Right Bank to this address facing the Invalides, where it won its star within six months of opening.

03The cooking

The kitchen works from ingredients sourced through the best Italian and French suppliers rather than from invention for its own sake: fish carpaccio, seafood antipasti, and pasta made in house, including a tagliatelle verdi with pheasant ragù and white Alba truffle that recurs across the restaurant's own description of its cooking. Classic Italian desserts close the meal, among them a hazelnut ice cream churned with Piedmont nuts.

The current seasonal carte, read on the restaurant's own site in October 2026, runs from warm langoustines with stewed Tuscan borlotti beans and ricotta (€40) and a 28-month aged Parma ham "Gran Tanara" with pear (€27), through mountain potato gnocchi with broccoli, anchovy and mozzarella (€36), linguine Mancini with baccalà alla Vincentina (€40) and a Vialone Nano risotto with gorgonzola and a snail ragù (€39), to mains such as Piedmontese veal loin with chanterelles and shallots, offered plain (€50) or finished with black truffle (€60).

04What to order

Among the antipasti, the raw artichoke salad with fennel, walnuts and parmesan (€29) and the "Scottona" beef carpaccio with pecorino cream and spinach shoots (€30) show the kitchen's light touch with raw produce. For a first course, the crab ravioli with a langoustine stew (€45) and the homemade tagliatelle with lamb ragù and olives (€40) are the two dishes that best sum up Penati's pasta-first instincts.

To finish, the tiramisù classico done "à la façon Alberico Penati" with its own granité (€17) and the homemade Piedmont hazelnut ice cream (€17) are the two desserts most closely associated with the chef's own name on the menu.

05Wine and drinks

The wine list runs to more than 350 references, almost entirely Italian, put together by sommelier Massimo Iacono working alongside Alberico Penati — a collection built specifically to match the regional range of the cooking rather than to chase trophy bottles.

06When to go and booking

The restaurant, read on its own site in October 2026, is closed on Mondays and all day Sunday, and serves lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday from 12.30pm to 2.30pm and 7.30pm to 10.30pm. At lunch there is a shorter formula of two courses, starter-and-main or main-and-dessert, for €35.

Given the view and the limited terrace seating, booking ahead for a summer lunch is worth doing well in advance.

07The neighbourhood

Penati al Baretto sits in the quiet, moneyed stretch of the 7th arrondissement between the Invalides and the Champ-de-Mars, in the district known as Gros-Caillou. The nearest métro is La Tour-Maubourg, and the walk there passes straight along the gardens the restaurant's own terrace looks out onto.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.