Pierre Gagnaire is a Michelin three-star restaurant that has also spent many years on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Gagnaire is considered a pioneer in molecular gastronomy and collaborated with chemist Hervé This in early explorations of synthetic cuisine – creating new forms and textures using tartaric acid, glucose, and polyphenols, and so on.
In contrast to the ebullient food, the dining room at Gagnaire has always been icy and formal. Dining here – at least during my two visits – can feel like sitting through an extremely long and quiet church service. Customers speak in whispers and fall silent when the stiff servers arrive to drop additional courses without explanation.
Gagnaire’s cuisine stands out as some of the best I’ve tasted among the Paris three-stars, but the dining room is so joyless that I’m not hurrying to go back.
6 rue Balzac, 75008
Open Monday-Friday for lunch and dinner
Closed Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 1 58 36 12 50
OUR PHOTOS OF PIERRE GAGNAIRE
IN OTHER WORDS
Simon Says (2009) “La gastronomie dans ces rares moments s’avère être belle et bonne. Mon meilleur repas de l’année…”
Food Snob (2009) “Random combinations of produce, unusual treatments of products, the introduction of science into cooking…Gagnaire utilises all such practices without prejudice.”
Chez Ptipois (2005) “Si je devais résumer, d’après le dîner d’hier soir, cette cuisine, j’insisterais sur sa délicatesse, sa poésie et sa miraculeuse unité de style.”