Pianovins – twenty seats and a kitchen that rewrites itself weekly

Pianovins sits on rue Trousseau, a quiet street in the 11th arrondissement a few minutes' walk from Bastille, in a dining room that has belonged to a string of serious small kitchens long before its current name arrived. The restaurant first opened under this name in April 2018, when chef Michel Roncière and sommelier Éric Mancio, both formerly of Guy Savoy's kitchens, took over a space that had previously housed the bistros Rino and then Les Déserteurs. In 2022 a new team known as Chefsatable — Emmanuel, Thomas, Johan and Raphaël — took over the address, and Pianovins remains exactly the size it has always been: a twenty-cover room built around an open kitchen. It is listed in both the MICHELIN Guide and the Gault & Millau guide, and it holds the distinction of being Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, while Gault & Millau currently rates it a two-toque Chef's Restaurant.

01The room and the setting

Walk in and the kitchen is immediately on the right, a pocket-sized open counter facing a handful of standing tables, so that most of the twenty-cover room watches the pans before the plates arrive. Gault & Millau, which still awards the address two toques, describes an elegant room that looks onto a leafy back courtyard, a detail that softens what is otherwise a narrow, close-set dining room built for exactly twenty diners. Air conditioning, listed among its facilities, is no small comfort in a room this tightly packed through a Paris summer service.

02The chef

Pianovins' first chef was Michel Roncière, a cook who spent three decades in Guy Savoy's kitchens before opening here in April 2018 alongside sommelier Éric Mancio, another Savoy alumnus, on a site that had briefly housed the natural-wine bistros Rino and then Les Déserteurs. The restaurant changed hands again in 2022, when it was taken over by the team behind Chefs à Table, a well-regarded address further down the same street. Today the kitchen belongs to chef Emmanuel Sudres, working the stove himself, while Raphaël runs the dining room as maître d'hôtel, with the Chefsatable collective of four — Emmanuel, Thomas, Johan and Raphaël — behind the project.

Insider tip

Book ahead for the 20-cover room; open Tuesday–Saturday, closed Sunday and Monday.

03The cooking and what to order

The format is simple: a four-course dinner menu at €50 or five courses at €65, changing with the market, as published on the restaurant's own site in October 2026. On a recent menu, dinner opened with leeks dressed in feta, dill and hazelnuts, moved to a cauliflower course lifted with redcurrants, raspberries and a dash of stout, then a crudo of red tuna with peaches, broccolini and bonito, before a dessert of poached peaches with custard and cinnamon; the five-course version adds a course of braised beef with a run of mushroom preparations.

Earlier menus have paired a charred broccolini starter with lamb dressed in scallions, green peppercorns and a mustard sauce, a reminder that the kitchen rewrites itself from one week to the next rather than settling on a fixed repertoire.

04When to go and booking

Pianovins opens for lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday, with service generally running from 12.30pm to 2pm at midday and from 7.30pm in the evening; Sundays and Mondays are closed. Given only twenty covers and a loyal following among regulars of the Chefsatable group, booking ahead is the only sensible approach, especially for the five-course dinner menu.

05The neighbourhood

Rue Trousseau sits in the thick of the Bastille dining scene, within easy walk of the Ledru-Rollin and Faidherbe-Chaligny metro stations, both served by line 8. The same four-strong team also runs Chefs à Table, a sibling address further along the street, giving this pocket of the 11th arrondissement a small constellation of linked tables run by the same hands.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.