Sola – a 14th-century cellar where Kyushu meets the Seine

On rue de l'Hôtel-Colbert, a narrow lane behind Notre-Dame in the Latin Quarter, Sola occupies a townhouse whose stone cellar has stood since the 14th century. Behind an unassuming door, chef Kosuke Nabeta runs one of Paris's most personal takes on Franco-Japanese cooking, built entirely on omakase, the Japanese principle of leaving every course to the kitchen's judgement. The restaurant opened in December 2010, founded by Youlin Ly together with chef Hiroki Yoshitake, and needed only a year to win its first star. Nabeta, born on the island of Kyushu, took charge of the kitchen in 2018 and earned the star again in 2019 under his own name. He is also a ceramicist, and the plates that carry his ten-course menu are his own work. It holds one MICHELIN Star, recognition for a kitchen that treats smoking, drying, marinating and fermenting not as borrowed decoration but as a native vocabulary.

01The room and the setting

Sola's address sits a few steps from the Seine quays and the towers of Notre-Dame, on a street whose cellars have sheltered merchants since the Middle Ages; the restaurant itself occupies a vaulted cellar dating to the 14th century. Upstairs, the dining room is pared back: light wood, a coffered ceiling and massive solid-wood doors set a calm, almost monastic tone. Downstairs is the real theatre of the house: the stone vault has been turned into a Japanese-style lounge, where guests are asked to remove their shoes before taking a seat at one of the sunken tables.

02The chef

Kosuke Nabeta began his career as a chef in Kagoshima before joining, in 2004, the brigade of a chef named Hosoya, who first introduced him to ceramics. He went on to refine his French and Italian technique in London, at Dinings London, before crossing into France as sous-chef at the launch of ERH. He took over Sola's kitchen in 2018 and won the restaurant its MICHELIN Star again the following year. Ceramics remain his second trade: he began shaping his own tableware during the pandemic lockdown, and every course at Sola is still served on pieces he has made himself, some of them worked from clay reclaimed from the vineyards of winemakers he visits.

Insider tip

Book ahead; closed Sun–Mon; lunch served Fri–Sat only.

03The cooking

Nabeta's cooking leans on ancestral Japanese methods, smoking, drying, marinating, fermenting, deployed on ingredients such as soy, sake, ponzu and mizuna, laid over French seasonal produce rather than replacing it. He calls his tasting menu "RE", a nod to his belief that nothing should be wasted and everything can be given a second life, an idea that runs just as much through his kitchen as through his ceramics studio. Past dinners have paired North Sea tuna tataki marinated in garum with ponzu, black radish, oyster and leek, followed by Normandy scallop prepared Rikyu-age style, sakura-smoked Loire foie gras, and milk-fed lamb finished over charcoal.

04Wine and drinks

The omakase dinner comes with pairings built around sake as much as wine: four glasses for €66 or seven for €98, chosen to echo each of the ten courses rather than simply accompany them. Guests who prefer to skip alcohol can request a four-glass non-alcoholic pairing, built from house-made teas and fermented drinks rather than dealcoholised bottles, though it must be arranged at the time of booking.

05When to go and booking

Sola serves dinner from Tuesday to Saturday and adds a lunch sitting on Fridays and Saturdays only; it is closed on Sundays, Mondays, and at lunch the rest of the week. The dining room seats only a small number of tables between its two floors, so booking well ahead, especially for a dinner slot in the cellar, is essential.

06The neighbourhood

The street took its present name, rue de l'Hôtel-Colbert, on 28 December 1829, a nod to the townhouse of the Colbert family that once stood here. It sits between the Seine and place Maubert, within easy reach of the Maubert-Mutualité and Cluny-La Sorbonne metro stations, in a stretch of the Latin Quarter still threaded with the medieval cellars that now hide some of the city's smaller, more private dining rooms.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.