13 new restaurant openings in Paris to watch in 2026

Time is one of the kitchen’s main tools at Eskal, where chef Alexandre Chambat uses maturation, curing, drying and fermentation to build depth into contemporary French cooking. His route through Pavillon Ledoyen, L’Astrance, L’Oiseau Blanc and La Monnaie gives the technique serious foundations, while extensive travel loosens the frame. Restaurateur Ken Nanaumi, also behind French-Japanese restaurant Akabeko, worked with architect Régis Botta on a restrained dining room centred on a broad kitchen counter suited to solo diners and close-up views of service. The result is precise, product-led gastronomy with French structure, Alpine roots and ideas gathered beyond France.

On the rooftop of Galeries Lafayette Haussmann, the historic Paris department store, Balcon turns a familiar view into a proper bistro terrace. Chef Julien Sebbag has kept the ninth-floor setting he used for Créatures, then moved from vegetarian rooftop cooking into French brasserie plates made for sharing. The name nods to Parisian zinc-and-wrought-iron balconies, but the draw is more direct: Opéra views, breakfast above the city, lunch in the sun and cocktails as the lights come on. Order mimosa eggs with black garlic, truffle coquillettes, beef bourguignon or chocolate-pistachio profiteroles.

Near Bastille, Toy gives the former Dersou site a precise new life as a ramen counter. British chef George Black, previously at Black Axe Mangal and Bright in London and Maison in Paris, spent years moving between ramen pop-ups in New York, Tokyo and Paris before settling here with Solal Martin-Grondard, owner of Les Œillets. The room is stripped back to concrete, steel, bare walls and a central counter, leaving the bowl to carry the mood. Choose shio, shoyu or vegetarian miso, with daily noodles, Duroc pork chāsu, wonton and ajitsuke tamago. Start with binchotan-grilled duck hearts.

Fuga R brings the Fuga group’s holiday-minded restaurant language to a rooftop above Monceau, the polished western side of Paris’ 8th arrondissement. Set on the 12th floor above Laïa Monceau, the terrace looks across the city from Montmartre to the Eiffel Tower, with a design cue taken from Lanzarote: black wood, terracotta tones, cacti, prickly pear and low sunset light. The format is built for afterwork rather than long tasting-menu concentration: cocktails, mocktails, tapas, pizzettes, live music and walk-ins for smaller groups. Use it for height, skyline and a little office-to-evening release.

Handrolls – the Japanese sushi format of crisp nori wrapped around rice and filling by hand – are usually counter food. Hando Champs-Élysées scales that idea into a 100-seat flagship near Paris’ most polished shopping and nightlife axis. Co-founder and artistic director Adrien Albou gives the fourth Hando address a central bar, terrace, private alcove, sculptural black throne by Jean-Guillaume Mathiaut and a silver-leaf fresco by Japanese artist Shinsuke Kawahara. Executive chef Chiharu Takada stretches the menu beyond the roll: Kobe beef, Kinmedai, gambas tempura, Toro Katsu, binchotan-warmed nigiri and matcha tiramisu.

Pigalle’s Bus Palladium has always been more useful after dark, and the reboot keeps that instinct alive. The restaurant-bar puts chef Valentin Raffali on a product-led French menu that reads sharp without going formal: white asparagus with flouve, amberjack with sorrel, barbecue red mullet with tartare sauce, Lozère lamb and a morel vol-au-vent. Drinks and small plates carry the room towards club hours. Then the revived Bus Palladium club picks up the 1965 rock-and-nightlife mythology with concerts, parties and Lionel Bensemoun steering the programme. The 35-room five-star hotel Bus Palladium sits above for those who want the full descent.

Mineral obsession gives Quartz Café its own charge in Paris’s 7th arrondissement, where architect and designer Sophie Dries has built a speciality coffee spot that feels more design-world hideout than standard caffeine stop. The room is tiny and standing-only, with pleated café curtains, a Corten steel floor, metallic details and a red plywood bench outside. Baristas work with beans from Paris roaster Partisan, matcha from Kyoto via Komā and pastries by Toutia that lean into cocoa, sesame, yuzu and other earthier notes. Even the water gets the full treatment, filtered and remineralised through dolomite containing quartz.

Green is the brief and Café Lacoste commits. In Paris’s 8th arrondissement, this is Lacoste’s first standalone café in the city, built with Riccardo Giraudi’s Giraudi Group, and it leans into tennis codes without doing costume. The room is compact at around 100 square metres with about 65 seats, so it works best as a quick stop between errands, not a three-hour camp-out. Coffee comes from Paris roaster Brûlerie de Belleville. Order the L’Eau de Croco – coconut water, matcha, ginger – then move on to the club sandwich.

A few blocks from the Eiffel Tower orbit, Kalve’s Paris shop is Latvia’s specialty roaster doing what it does best: a tight bar, calm service and coffee that doesn’t need extras. It’s the brand’s 11th location, designed by Field Studio with a moody, mineral interior concept Kalve calls ‘Archive of Lost Plants’. Espresso is the default order, then switch to filter if you want to taste what the roastery is chasing. Beans are on the shelf for home brewing, so you can keep the habit going once you leave the neighbourhood.

In Paris’s 18th arrondissement, Chez Elisa keeps it tight with a short, rotating menu that reads bistro, then quietly swerves. Starters run from vichyssoise to fish rillettes with toast and pickles, or oeufs cocotte with ham and Comté. Mains go comforting: pulled beef bourguignon with gnocchi, a stew of beans and shellfish, or fried rice done classic or vegetarian. Desserts stick the landing with tiramisu, apple crumble or chocolate mousse. Everything is house-made, with ingredients chosen responsibly.