Behind two majestic wrought-iron doors, in the Four Seasons Hotel George V two minutes from the Champs-Élysées, Christian Le Squer has maintained three Michelin stars since 2016. He describes what he does as Parisian haute cuisine on the move — a living, evolving expression of French classical cooking, lighter and more contemporary than it once was, still anchored in Brittany and its sea.

The Room


Lofty columns, ornate mouldings, flowers that change by the season — and soft light from the interior garden.


Le Cinq reveals itself behind two majestic wrought-iron doors. The room beyond them is among the most celebrated dining interiors in Europe: a Franco-English Regency style, with lofty columns, ornate plasterwork mouldings, and tall bouquets of flowers arranged in compositions that change with the season and have made the Four Seasons George V's floral program one of the most photographed in hotel history. Soft light enters from the interior courtyard garden — a protected pocket of calm in the middle of the 8th arrondissement that gives the dining room a quality of illumination unavailable on any other Parisian street-facing block.


The grey and gold colour scheme runs through the room. The tableware is considered as deliberately as the food. The service team — orchestrated by Eric Beaumard, one of France's most distinguished restaurant directors and a finalist in the World's Best Sommelier competition — moves through the room with the specific grace of a team that has been operating at this level for years. Beaumard supervises a cellar of approximately 50,000 bottles that includes some of the rarest and most sought-after wines in the French tradition. The sommelier's recommendations at Le Cinq are among the most informed available in the city.


The hotel surrounding the restaurant is part of the experience. The Four Seasons George V is considered one of the great palace hotels of Europe — not simply for its facilities but for the accumulated standard of its service, the calibre of its staff, and the specific atmosphere that comes from a building that has been receiving important people graciously since 1928. Arriving through the lobby for dinner at Le Cinq is a complete experience before you have opened the menu.

The Chef


Twelve years of three stars at Ledoyen. Then Le Cinq, to make it even more Parisian.


Christian Le Squer is from Morbihan in Brittany — a childhood surrounded by the specific sea smells, the coastal produce, the iodine and butter and shellfish of the Atlantic coast. He describes the connection between his origins and his cooking as absolute: smells from the sea, from the specific landscape of his youth, that return to him constantly and find their way onto the menu. The Breton buttermilk served with caviar and sea bass. The salted butter with lobster. The lait ribot — Breton fermented milk — applied with the confidence of someone who learned to love it before he learned to cook.


Before joining the Four Seasons George V in October 2014, Le Squer held three Michelin stars at Pavillon Ledoyen for twelve consecutive years — one of the longest three-star tenures in contemporary French cooking. The decision to move to Le Cinq was, by his own account, motivated by the opportunity to move to an international stage, and by the specific challenge of making the George V more Parisian. Not more French in the generic sense — Paris already has many restaurants that could claim that — but more Parisian in the particular sense: a reflection of the city's specific life, its fashion, its art, its everyday energy, its preference for cuisine that is elegant and refined without being remote or intimidating.


We use the French culinary heritage as a base and bring it up to date. It's a long process, like craftsman's work. It's the pure essence of luxury.

CHRISTIAN LE SQUER


He received three Michelin stars at Le Cinq in 2016 — just two years after joining — and has retained them at every subsequent inspection through 2025. The Michelin Guide describes him consistently as a composer of tastes: a chef who assembles flavours the way a perfumer assembles a fragrance, with a specific attention to how they linger and how they interact. The lightness of his cooking — contemporary in its refinement, classical in its grammar — is the product of a deliberate decision to move the tradition forward rather than to preserve it in amber.

The Signatures


The dishes that define a decade at Le Cinq


Gratinated Onion Soup Bulbs


A play on one of the most iconic French dishes — the onion presented as individual filled bulbs with onion purée, Parmesan-gratinated baguette croutons and a truffle sauce. The onion flavour is intense and the technique is immaculate. A signature that demonstrates Le Squer's approach: classical subject matter, contemporary form.


Sea Bass, Caviar, Lait Ribot


Line-caught sea bass with Kristal caviar and Breton buttermilk — described by Le Squer as "from my childhood." The lait ribot connection is personal and precise: the fermented Breton milk gives the dish an acidity and a regionality that no imported luxury ingredient could replace. The caviar is the contrast; the buttermilk is the soul.


The Pasta Cylinder



A rectangular tube formed from spaghetti strands compressed together, filled with a blend of ham, mushroom and cheese, served with a truffled sauce. One of the most technically striking dishes in the current tasting menu — visually arresting, requiring extraordinary precision to execute, genuinely delicious as a composition. Guests specifically travel to Le Cinq to eat this.


Breton Langoustines


The langoustine from Brittany — Le Squer's home coast — appears in varying preparations across seasons. The sourcing is personal and the quality is exceptional. One of the courses where the chef's biography is most directly visible in the ingredient: this shellfish, from this specific coastline, prepared by someone for whom it is not an imported luxury but a childhood memory.


The Cheese Trolley


Le Cinq's cheese service — presented tableside from a trolley of remarkable range — is one of the finest in Paris. The aromas alone, as guests consistently report, justify the course. Eric Beaumard's wine selections for the cheese course are among his most considered. Allow time for this.


Pastry by Michael Bartocetti


Executive Pastry Chef Michael Bartocetti's dessert philosophy — forgoing refined sugar in favour of fruit and honey, inspired by nature — produces a closing sequence that is lighter than most Parisian dessert courses. Inspired by nature rather than by classical pastry formulas, the desserts are both beautiful and restrained.

Before You Go


Everything practical, plainly told


  • Address: Four Seasons Hotel George V, 31 Avenue George V, 75008 Paris, France


  • Phone: +33 1 49 52 71 54


  • Website: restaurant-lecinq.com and fourseasons.com/paris


  • Hours: Open daily. Lunch from 12:30 to 2:00pm. Dinner from 7:00 to 9:30pm. Le Cinq is one of the few three-star restaurants in Paris to serve daily, including weekends — making it more accessible for short visits than some competitors with limited service days.


  • Getting There: George V Metro station (Line 1) is directly outside the hotel. The restaurant is two minutes from the Champs-Élysées and a five-minute walk from the Arc de Triomphe. Central Paris by taxi is typically 10–15 minutes. Arriving by the hotel entrance on Avenue George V is the correct approach — the lobby and the floral arrangements are part of the experience.


  • Bookings: Via restaurant-lecinq.com, fourseasons.com, or by phone. A credit card guarantee is required for every reservation. The daily service schedule makes bookings more accessible than many three-star restaurants — book 4–8 weeks ahead for most dates, longer for special occasions and peak holiday periods.


  • Price: The lunch tasting menu starts from approximately €190–€230 per person for food only. Dinner tasting menus run approximately €280–€390 per person. Wine pairing is additional. The lunch service represents one of the better-value entry points to a three-star Paris experience — same kitchen, same room, lower price. The 50,000-bottle cellar means the sommelier's wine selections can be extraordinary at any budget discussed in advance.


  • Dress Code: Formal. Jacket or blazer obligatory for all male guests. No shorts, sportswear, or sandals. This is a palace hotel dining room; the dress code is strictly enforced and represents a specific atmosphere that the room requires. Dress accordingly — the investment is part of the experience.


  • The Hotel: The Four Seasons George V also holds one-star restaurants L'Orangerie (two stars since 2024) and Le George (one star, Michelin Green Star). The lobby and its seasonal floral arrangements are worth seeing even without a reservation — the George V's floral design has been internationally recognised as one of the finest expressions of hotel interior floral art in the world.
Things Worth Knowing


Before you pass through the wrought-iron doors


  • Lunch is the best value entry point to Paris three-star dining —
At approximately €190–€230 per person for food, the Le Cinq lunch menu offers the same kitchen, the same chef, the same room and the same service team as dinner at a meaningfully lower price. Multiple Paris three-star regulars specifically recommend lunch as the optimal way to experience this category of restaurant without the full dinner price commitment. 



  • Have the cheese trolley regardless of appetite —
The cheese service at Le Cinq — its range, its aromas, the specific pleasure of Eric Beaumard's wine selection to accompany it — is one of the experiences that distinguishes this from any other category of Parisian dining. Eat lightly earlier in the meal if necessary to ensure the cheese course receives the attention it deserves. 



  • Arrive early to spend time in the lobby —
The George V's seasonal floral arrangements — arranged in the lobby and throughout the public spaces in compositions that change regularly and are considered internationally significant — are part of the hotel's identity. Arriving thirty minutes before a reservation to walk through the lobby is not a detour; it is the beginning of the experience. 



  • The pasta cylinder is the signature to order if you can —
The rectangular pasta tube filled with ham, mushroom, cheese and truffle sauce is mentioned by nearly every guest who writes about Le Cinq as the dish they will remember longest. It is also among the most technically demanding preparations in the current menu. If it is on the tasting menu when you visit, prioritise it. 



  • This is where Parisian haute cuisine is being kept alive —
Le Cinq is not a museum of French cooking — Le Squer describes his cuisine as on the move, contemporary, evolving. But it is the place in Paris where the full ambition of the French classical tradition is most consistently and most beautifully expressed. Coming here is coming to the centre of something, not the edge of it.
Why This Restaurant


What Le Cinq actually represents


Paris has more three-star restaurants than any city outside Tokyo. It has restaurants that are more experimental, more conceptually ambitious, more formally innovative than Le Cinq. What it does not have, in quite the same configuration, is a room of this grandeur, a cellar of this depth, a service of this calibre, and a chef of this consistency — all in a single address, available daily, within the structure of one of the world's great hotels.


Le Squer's twelve years of three stars at Pavillon Ledoyen before joining Le Cinq is the biographical foundation of the cooking — a chef who had already proved his ability to sustain the highest level of excellence over a long period before taking on a new challenge. The two years between his arrival in 2014 and the three-star recognition in 2016 was the period in which he adapted the George V's existing kitchen reputation to his own approach. Since then, the retention has been consistent and the cooking has continued to develop.


The chef himself stopped by our table. His timeless cuisine, always showcasing outstanding produce, unveils his virtuoso technique and phenomenal delicacy — and he never fails to pay tribute to his native Brittany.

MICHELIN GUIDE INSPECTORS ON CHRISTIAN LE SQUER


The argument for Le Cinq is ultimately the argument for what Parisian palace dining means at its best: a complete experience of service, setting, wine, and food that is available nowhere else and that represents the French tradition of hospitality in its most fully realised form. It is not the most adventurous restaurant in Paris. It is the most completely Parisian. Le Squer said as much when he took the job: if you want to dine international, there are many places to do it in the city. What we do here is Parisian, and we do it very well.