10 great eats around the Champs-Elysées

Opened earlier this year, the 1960s Champs-Elysées icon now counts a brand-spanking new restaurant to its name. Restaurant Le Drugstore is as sleek as can be: both in terms of the Tom Dixon-made design, and the menu, created by Eric Frechon - a 3-starred Michelin chef and head of the kitchen at Le Bristol. Not a shabby start... If we're judging by looks, it's a large space but retains an air of exclusivity...

Like its big sister, Restaurant Copenhagen, Flora Danica has gone through a bit of a refurb. Gone is the sombre decoration and same-same menu, and instead we're treated to a vibrant and stylish ambiance - on and off the plate.  Located on the prestigious Champs-Elysées within the Maison du Danemark, Flora Danica’s Danish brasserie is more than spacious...

On the edge of the Seine, with tall bay windows overlooking the Eiffel Tower, and chic grey and mauve décor, Antoine is a shrine to the sea – albeit a posh one!  Moneyed crowds from the nearby Triangle d’Or gather day and night to sample chef Thibault Sombardier’s perfect-every-time oysters and extravagant dishes like whole roasted lobster served with winter vegetable en cocotte, plump St-Jacques scallops, and thick, fish-rich Bouillabaisse (fish soup) served with saffron tinted rouille (garlicky mayonnaise)...

Philippe Starck’s latest venture in Paris is a rock-Japanese outfit occupying a 500m2 space just off the Champs-Elysées. It’s been set up to like like a narrow Chinatown street, bustling and colourful at night, with open kitchens at the end where chefs work away beneath an array of suspended woks and neon lights. Giant paper lanterns are everywhere, forests of umbrellas hung over the tables, and there's a 26-metre table made up of a mosaic of screens, across which a dragon turns somersaults...

Danish cuisine is still in its heyday and does indeed extend beyond the walls of that very famous Nordic eatery and even the borders of Scandinavia. Maison du Danemark, an exhibition space and cultural hub for all things Danish, was consecrated on 142 Champs-Elysées way back in 1955. On the first floor, Restaurant Copenhague (along with the downstairs brasserie Flora Danica) is busy refreshing the image of this institution...

To say that something is all the rage implies that it will have its moment in the sun and then disappear – which can’t be said of dim sum, whose popularity in Paris seems set to endure. Mum Dim Sum on the boulevard Courcelles, a chic and friendly canteen that takes its décor more from New York than Beijing, has been a popular choice for some time. Everything is home made and you really feel it, in the smells from the kitchen and the freshly-prepared dim sum and dishes like perfumed thai rice or soup that are as delicious as they are affordable...

Lasserre’s rich history is definitely a part of the dining experience: notables like Audrey Hepburn, André Malraux and Salvador Dali were regulars; it harboured Resistance fighters during the war; and it was while dining with Malraux that Marc Chagall decided to paint the ceiling for the Opera Garnier. But its illustrious past is nothing next to the food: chef Christophe Moret (ex-Plaza Athénée) and his pastry chef Claire Heitzler (ex-Ritz) create lip-smacking delicacies to die for...

Fans of the fashionable trend for preserving, head straight to Boco. The Ferniot brothers, inspired by their memories of their grandmother’s dishes, had the brilliant idea of capturing the recipes of top chefs in preserving jars and now dishes by Anne-Sophie Pic, Frédéric Bau, Christophe Michalak, Philippe Conticini and more are sitting pretty in glass containers (€4 to €9). They work variously as lunch boxes, microwaveable meals or dishes to be warned in a bain-marie...