Géméllus, Paris 7

Jan 26, 2025

Let’s cut to the chase: I’ve had plenty of good meals in Paris since I returned just over three weeks ago, but lunch at Géméllus, along with a lunch at Alliance that I have not written up on this blog, are easily the two best meals I’ve had so far this year.

Géméllus is latin for gemelli, which is a French word for twins. Chef Maxime Le Meur is a twin, hence the name of the restaurant. Le Meur, after a string of top jobs (Apicius, Georges V, Lapérousse), opened this restaurant with his brother Clément a little over three years ago. I confess that it had not come onto my radar screen until a couple of weeks ago when I dined at Attabler and with the check was given the business cards both for Attabler and for Géméllus. Le Meur apparently is a very good friend of Attabler’s chef and I believe even has an interest in Attabler. But the concepts and aims of the two restaurants are quite different: Attabler is comfy traditional food, Géméllus is sophisticated with inventive cuisine of the chef.

The restaurant consists of a small front room in which, I’d guess, a maximum of +/- thirty diners can be seated, and a small, semi-private room off the corridor to the kitchen. The interior is elegantly understated, broken only by two contemporary paintings:

The day we were there, the diners were about half French, half American, including a disturbingly loud woman from New York who could be heard perfectly from the other side of the room.

At lunch, there is a menu of 35€ for two course, 42€ for three:

One can also choose one of the tasting menus that are also offered in the evening:

We chose the three-course lunch menus.

The wine list is extensive for a restaurant this small, very well-priced, and impeccably chosen. We chose a bottle of a 2022 Saint-Aubin “En L’Ebaupin” white Burgundy that was amazingly balanced with great tension and harmony and penetrating minerality.

As an opener, we received a vegetable broth that had been given a smoky overtone from Montbéliard sausage that had been cooked in it:

This was absolutely perfect in setting the tone for what was to come. The broth was deep and rich and cut the chill from the rainy January day outside.

Next came the amuse-bouche:

Tartelettes of carrot mousse with trout roe on top and biscuits topped with shallots cooked in red wine with lard and foie gras. Both were delights in flavor and intensity.

The entrée was a wonderful dish of mushrooms, cecina (a Spanish charcuterie), foie gras, and other spices bound together by a mustard cream. Amazing precision and clarity of flavors here with excellent nuance, as the chef calls it.