Restaurant F – Francisco Merino's twelve-table room near Trocadéro

Restaurant F sits two streets back from the Trocadéro gardens, on a short stretch of rue Saint-Didier that chef Francisco Merino made his own when he opened the restaurant under his own name in May 2024. Beyond a curtained entrance and two steps down, only twelve tables face the open kitchen where Merino built his reputation. Born in Burgos, in the heart of Castile, he trained in some of Paris's most demanding kitchens – Hélène Darroze's, Éric Fréchon's, Éric Briffard's among them – and ran the kitchens of the Hôtel Raphaël before striking out on his own. His cooking stays French in technique, inflected with the Mediterranean and Spanish flavours of his childhood, and the dining room matches that quiet confidence: an intimate, almost confidential space built for closeness rather than spectacle. Restaurant F is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide for its Modern Cuisine, and sits in the guide's "Special occasion" price bracket.

01The room and the setting

Two steps lead down from the street, then a curtain parts to reveal the kitchen sitting directly opposite the entrance – Merino working at the stove in full view of the room, the way he might in his own dining room at home. Parquet runs underfoot, the walls are painted the green of the olive trees from his childhood farm, and the tables are dressed simply, with ecru armchairs and pressed linen.

The interior, designed by Studio Paulimar, was conceived as a cocoon rather than a showroom, with only a dozen tables in the room. It is close enough to feel private, dressed enough to feel like an occasion.

02The chef

Francisco Merino arrived in Paris after training in some of Europe's most exacting houses, working alongside chefs such as Hélène Darroze and Éric Fréchon as well as Éric Briffard before taking charge of the kitchens at the Hôtel Raphaël, one of the grand hotel addresses of the 16th arrondissement.

Insider tip

Open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner; weekly changing set menus from 45€ to 100€.

Restaurant F, opened in May 2024, is his first restaurant under his own name – the result of more than a decade spent absorbing French technique without losing the Mediterranean, Spanish instincts of Burgos, the Castilian town where he was born.

03The cooking

Merino rewrites his set menus every week, and in the evening the same ideas reappear à la carte. Seasonal cards have run from a shrimp carpaccio with raspberries to tiny peas finished with a sphere of egg white, monkfish cooked with liquorice, roast guinea fowl stuffed with corn, and a roast veal fillet finished with vegetable ash – plates that read French on the page but taste, in their acidity and colour, distinctly Mediterranean.

04What to order

At lunch the kitchen offers a two-course menu at 45€ (starter and main, or main and dessert) or a three-course version at 55€. The Découverte menu runs to four courses, 70€ at midday and 80€ in the evening, and the six-course Menu Évasion, at 100€, doubles every stage with two starters, two mains and two desserts.

On the seasonal card, the shrimp carpaccio and the liquorice-cooked monkfish are the dishes most often singled out by Paris's restaurant press, alongside a roast veal fillet served with vegetable ash.

05When to go and booking

Restaurant F serves lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday, from noon to 2pm and from 7pm to 10pm; phone reservations are taken between 2pm and 8pm, or tables can be booked by email.

For Valentine's Day the kitchen builds a separate seven-course menu, served to every table at once, with a choice of wine pairing or an alcohol-free version, and a dessert signed by pastry chef Rina, newly arrived from Japan.

06The neighbourhood

The address sits between the Trocadéro and the Arc de Triomphe, in a stretch of the 16th arrondissement better known for embassies and Haussmannian façades than for restaurants, reached on foot from the Boissière, Trocadéro or Victor Hugo métro stations.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.