Alain Ducasse Baccarat

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

Where Art and French Cuisine Share the Same Address

At 11 Place des États-Unis in Paris's 16th arrondissement, Baccarat and Alain Ducasse have transformed a legendary hôtel particulier into something that resists easy categorisation. The maison, as they call it, is built on a dialogue between two institutions of French excellence: the crystal manufacture founded in Lorraine, and a chef who describes gastronomy as "a terrain of creation to explore." The result is a place designed to be lived in for an entire day — not merely visited.

The restaurant Alain Ducasse Baccarat occupies the first floor. Named the world's most beautiful restaurant by the Prix Versailles 2025 — the global prize for architecture and design — the room earns that distinction through restraint as much as splendour. Tall shelves sculpted from oak sourced at the Domaine de Charlois in Burgundy line the walls, the work of artist Jean-Guillaume Mathiaut. Above the tables, a cascade of crystal drops transforms the ceiling. Baccarat crystal catches every shift of light on the tabletop itself. The aesthetic, in Alain Ducasse's own words, is "a cuisine that is sculpted, almost Cistercian — a cuisine that honours precise lines, in the right light."

The Kitchen: Saintagne, Schroeder, and a Seasonal Sensibility

The restaurant's creative engine is the duo of chefs Christophe Saintagne and Robin Schroeder, who work under Ducasse's direction. Their French cuisine moves with the seasons and leans toward precision over abundance. Festive menus have featured raw sea scallops with radish, seaweed and horseradish condiment; truffled yellow capon with Jerusalem artichokes; and a blue lobster presented in the colours of the French flag — the maison's signature dish — paired by sommelier Fabrice Langlois with a Condrieu for its mineral clarity. Langlois, who earned the restaurant a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence in 2025, builds pairings that move from Burgundian Meursault to vintage Veuve Clicquot champagne, always with a stated principle: an uncompromising balance between accessibility and gustatory excellence.

A Maison Built for the Whole Day

The restaurant is one layer of a richer whole. On the ground floor, the Jardin — a garden conceived by landscape architect Jérémie Attali following permaculture principles, sheltered by chestnut trees and fragrant rose bushes — operates as a lighter, seasonal counterpart: think blue lobster French toast with raw fennel, or a strawberry and marjoram tart, served outdoors from spring through late September. The Midi-Minuit bar animates the first floor from noon to midnight, with sommelier-led wine evenings, cocktails, and an octagonal tasting room where painter Gérard Garouste's "Indiennes" canvases hang beneath a canopy evoking medieval princely tents.

Throughout the building, six artists have each claimed a space: Harry Nuriev's hieroglyph-inspired entrance, Pierre Tatin's stained-glass antechamber that reads like a chapel of light, Philippe Nigro's boutique modelled on the Baccarat Manufacture's annealing arches. The 18th-century ballroom, available for private hire, completes a programme that runs from Sunday brunch to intimate private dinners. The maison's own formulation says it best: "the art of taste, and the taste of art."