Granite, 6 rue Bailleul, Paris 6 -- Chef Yoshitaka Takayanagi Takes Over

Granite, located a short walk from the Louvre, opened in September 2021, with Tom Meyer as chef. When Michelin announced its new ratings barely six months later, the establishment had earned a star. It is part of the Eclore group of restaurants in Paris which seems to attract Michelin stars like flies (currently Maison Rostaing has two stars, and Granite, Substance, Contraste, and Hémicycle all have one star; Braise and Liquide have had stars in the past but do not have them in the current guide).

Over the years, I had a number of outstanding lunches at Granite, although in January 2024, the last time I had been there, the service and dessert were not up to previous experiences.

Earlier this year, the restaurant announced that Yoshitaka Takayanagi would be taking over as chef. I have had a number of excellent lunches from Takayanagi at La Scène Thélème in the 17th arrondissement, near the Arc de Triomphe, and so I was very interested in seeing what he would do here.

The interior of the restaurant is modern and understated. Tables for two are on the ground floor.

A room below ground is used for parties of three or more.

Our room included a few tables of French businessmen and a youngish Asian woman, whom I think was of American nationality based on her English, dining on her own.

There are menus at 158€ and 188€, a vegetarian menu at 128€, and at lunch a three-course menu at 58€ and a four-course menu at 88€. We chose the 88€ menu, consisting of first course, fish course, meat course, and dessert.

As at all the Eclore restaurants, the wine list is excellent, but rather highly-priced. The list is deep and includes a large number of selections, including rarities of interest to wine aficionados. There are not many bottles below 100€. I could not make sense of the markups, some seemed extremely high, but others seemed more reasonable. At any rate, the decrease of markups that I’ve observed in some other restaurants has yet to hit Granite.

For wine, we chose a bottle of white 2022 Maranges 1er La Fussière from the excellent producer Bachelet-Monnot.

Maranges is the southernmost appellation in Burgundy’s Côte d’Or vineyards, and in fact it is not in the department of Côte d’Or, but rather in the Sâone-et-Loire department. The wine was excellent with clarity, minerality, and tension.

The amuse-bouches:

All were designed to suggest something other than they were.

The second photo shows a tartlette that looks like it might be filled with some sort of cream, but in fact it was delicious marinated onion.

The first course was a “risotto” (there was no rice) with a confit egg (no egg for me, in the second photo):

The early spring vegetables were delicious on their own, but I fear I missed out on the complete experience by not having the egg to mix into them.

The fish course was lieu jaune (pollack):

Lieu jaune is somewhat intermediate in the price hierarchy of fish in France, being above cabaillaud (cod), which although the least expensive of fish, usually is delicious, and below the price of luxury fish such as turbot and Saint-Pierre (John Dory). It was the best lieu jaune I’ve ever had, qualitatively in a different league from all the others with so much more texture, depth and flavor, while still retaining its lightness and elegance. A difference between the three- and four-course lunch menus is the addition of this course, and I would say that its exceptional quality fully justified the rather steep 30€ difference between the two menus.

For meat, there was a choice between chicken breast and pork and we both took the chicken breast:

It was moist and juicy and well-complemented by the sauce, but the real star of this dish was the artichoke in peppers and dandelions, shown on the right, packed with so many layers of flavor.

Dessert was kiwi sorbet with pistachio cream and a sauce of persil oil. It was light, delicious, and like most French desserts, not overly sweet. There were pineapple slices in the pistacchio cream and they were the star of this dish, with purity of flavor and blending with the other elements instead of being dominant, as pineapple sometimes can be.

The mignardises:

And the tab, which as always in France, by law includes tax and tip:

Chef Takayanagi is in the kitchen during the meal, working on the food and not just supervising. The quality of the meal here was excellent, and for those on a budget, the 58€ lunch menu is one of the better values in high-end dining in Paris, especially given the location in the heart of Paris and just a short walk from the Louvre.

Comparing this meal to the lunches I had from chef Takayanagi here with those at La Scène Thélème, my impression is that the Japanese influence was somewhat more overt at the latter, although that may just seem that way because of the large number of Japanese diners at La Scène Thélème every time that I was there.

Note: I do not take notes while eating, and so in some of the instances above, I have forgotten all of the ingredients involved.

Granite

6 rue Bailleul, 75001 Paris

Monday-Friday lunch and dinner

Telephone: 01 40 13 64 06

website: granite.paris

Métro: Louvre-Rivoli (line 1), Pont Neuf (line 7), Les Halles (line 4)