Go Inside Paris’s Latest Hot Spot, Les Grands Verres

Parisian architect Lina Ghotmeh conjured the 170-seat restaurant. Photo: Takuji Shimmura, Courtesy of Lina Ghotmeh

Les Grands Verres, the new restaurant in Paris’s hallowed Le Palais de Tokyo art museum, has the refreshingly quirky, funky vibe of hot spots in the Marais. That’s not surprising, since the group behind it, Quixotic Projects, is responsible for many of the chic places that have reinvigorated the city’s once staid dining scene (like speakeasy-taqueria Candelaria). Chef Preston Miller, an alum of the Breslin in New York City, has created a menu of Mediterranean brasserie dishes such as a Lebanese-style chopped salad and house-made spinach bucatini. Sustainability is a theme that carries through both the interiors and the food.

In the heart of the space, architect Lina Ghotmeh (whose past collaborators include Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Foster & Partners) inserted a showstopping 40-foot bar of compacted earth with beautifully preserved layers of sediment. And the kitchen uses every part of the vegetable, like eggplant juices strained from a side dish that get mixed into a foamy verjus-rum cocktail. palaisdetokyo.com

The eatery has morphed into Paris’s latest hot spot since opening in July. Photo: Takuji Shimmura, Courtesy of Lina Ghotmeh

The airy space features chic X-shaped banquettes and dangling light pendants. Photo: Takuji Shimmura, Courtesy of Lina Ghotmeh

The 40-foot-long bar was crafted with rammed earth. Photo: Takuji Shimmura, Courtesy of Lina Ghotmeh

Ghotmeh’s use of untreated wood adds to the industrial aesthetic. Photo: Takuji Shimmura, Courtesy of Lina Ghotmeh