Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen

Alléno Paris is Yannick Alléno's restaurant inside the Pavillon Ledoyen, a neoclassical pavilion in the gardens of the Champs-Élysées. It holds three Michelin stars.

The house started before the Revolution as a simple inn and took its name from Pierre-Michel Ledoyen, a former dishwasher who rented it and later renamed it after himself. In 1842 the architect Jacques Hittorff, who laid out the Champs-Élysées gardens, moved it to the spot where it stands today, and the building belongs to the City of Paris. Robespierre and Saint-Just ate here days before their execution, Napoleon is said to have met Joséphine here, and Degas, Monet, Zola and Flaubert were regulars.

Alléno, who had earlier reached the guide's top rank at Le Meurice, took over the kitchen from Christian Le Squer in July 2014. He treats jus and sauce as the grammar of French cooking, extracting and reducing them as the core of each plate. His first menus here brought foie gras poached in Rivesaltes wine, grilled blue lobster with a coral vinaigrette and a poularde poached in a stock of Jura wine. Later came a Belon oyster gratinated with Champagne and morels, crisp Racan pigeon and turbot with orange blossom and jasmine fritters.

Tall windows and ornate ceilings frame the dining room, and Ruth Reichl wrote of how luxurious it feels and how convincing the staff are. The same pavilion also houses L'Abysse, Alléno's sushi counter, and the more relaxed Pavyllon, both starred as well, and Gault&Millau lists Alléno Paris among its exceptional restaurants. A room shaped by more than two centuries of Paris history meets a kitchen focused on modern sauce technique, so old ceremony and new method sit at the same table.