Garance

Guillaume Muller (former sommelier at l’Arpège) chose a very upmarket area of the 7th arrondissement in which to open the red-hued Garance. There’s an elegant, light-filled dining room on the first floor, and downstairs a classically Parisian bar where you can eat if you’re alone or just want to watch the world go by, and a tiny open kitchen.

At lunchtime, the restaurant manages to please both busy white collar workers and relaxed bons vivants with a solid €34 menu. The dishes are enormously generous, and the excellent ingredients preserve their best flavours – strong and punchy (duck confit rubbed with salt, beef tartare with smoked egg yolk), or more adventurous (scallops and monkfish finished with bone marrow). The desserts play with sweet and savoury flavours (chocolate, butternut and vanilla tart, pear sorbet).

For the wines, there are good lower-end bottles (Les Choisilles de Chidaine, Fleurie de Dutraive) and some more serious vintages (Les Sevrées de Lignier, Château Mayne Lalande). Prices by the glass (between €6 and €12) and bottle (€25 to €58) are good for the quality. The service fits the venue, careful without overdoing it, relaxed without being over-familiar. In the evenings, the well-spaced tables welcome large parties as well as they do romantic couples. A private dining room is due to open upstairs, but for the moment everything looks very good.