Restaurant in Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre, France
Michelin star, no Paris premium attached.
A Michelin-starred kitchen in a converted hunting lodge outside Paris, run by a Gagnaire-trained chef who builds his menus around a kitchen garden and local producers. At €€€, it delivers serious Modern Cuisine without the €€€€ overhead of a Paris palace restaurant — but with limited weekly hours and a compressed Saturday lunch service, you need to book well ahead.
Numéro 3 holds a Michelin star (2024) and a Google rating of 4.8 across 522 reviews, which is a meaningful signal for a restaurant this far outside the city. The kitchen is run by Laurent Trochain, who trained at Pierre Gagnaire before returning to champion the produce of the Île-de-France region. That training lineage matters: it tells you the technical foundation here is serious, not provincial.
The dining room is the first thing that recalibrates your expectations. Julie and Laurent Trochain have transformed a former hunting lodge into a space that has shed every rustic cliché — no exposed beams, no stone fireplace, no farmhouse nostalgia. What replaced them is a clean, geometrical, contemporary interior that reads as deliberate and considered rather than decorated. For a food-focused explorer, this matters: the space signals that the kitchen is the point, not the setting. The room works for two, and it likely works for a small group, though no seat count is confirmed in available data.
Trochain's cooking is anchored in regional produce, with vegetables and aromatic herbs sourced from his own kitchen garden and a network of small-scale local producers. This is not a trend posture , it is a structural commitment that shapes what arrives on the plate from week to week. His vegetarian menu has reportedly grown in popularity, which is worth noting if that is a priority for your table. Compared to peers in the Michelin-starred village-restaurant category , places like Maison Lameloise in Chagny or Auberge du Vieux Puits in Fontjoncouse , Numéro 3 is positioned in the same spirit: a serious kitchen operating outside a major city, betting on ingredient quality and technical precision over theatre or spectacle.
The Gagnaire training thread running through Trochain's background connects Numéro 3 to a lineage that includes some of France's most technically demanding kitchens. For context on what that culinary tradition looks like at its apex, see Arpège in Paris or Mirazur in Menton , both share the garden-to-table precision philosophy, though at different price tiers and scales. Numéro 3 is the version you can access at €€€, without the €€€€ overhead of a Paris palace restaurant.
The recent renovation , which stripped out the traditional hunting lodge aesthetic entirely in favour of a contemporary, geometric interior , is the most significant change worth understanding before you visit. This is not a restaurant that is resting on heritage charm. The transformation was a deliberate signal: the Trochain team chose to compete on cooking and experience, not atmosphere borrowed from the building's past. That decision makes Numéro 3 a stronger choice for a diner who wants the food to do the work, and a weaker choice if you are looking for rustic French countryside warmth.
Opening hours are limited: Thursday through Saturday evenings from 7:30 PM, with a Saturday lunch service starting at noon. Closed Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. The compressed schedule means this kitchen is operating at intentional capacity , which is a good sign for consistency, but requires planning. Saturday lunch is the only midday option during the week, which makes it a rare slot in this part of the Île-de-France. For other destinations in the region worth combining with a visit, see our full Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre restaurants guide, and if you are staying overnight, check our Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre hotels guide.
Price range is confirmed at €€€. No specific tasting menu prices are available in current data, but at this tier you are looking at a meaningful spend , closer to what you would pay at a single-starred Paris restaurant, but with notably less competition for tables in the immediate area. The trade-off is travel time from central Paris, which is non-trivial. Whether that journey is worth making depends on how important escaping the city is to you, and how much you value a kitchen-garden-driven, Gagnaire-trained approach in an intimate, contemporary room.
For explorers interested in the broader context of serious French cooking outside Paris, this restaurant sits in good company. Flocons de Sel in Megève, Bras in Laguiole, and Les Prés d'Eugénie in Eugénie-les-Bains all represent the French tradition of destination dining outside the capital , kitchens where the journey is part of the rationale. Numéro 3 is a smaller-scale version of that proposition, with the added biographical detail that the village itself has a documented connection to Picasso, Picabia, and art dealer Ambroise Vollard, and that the poet Blaise Cendrars is buried here. None of that changes what arrives on your plate, but it adds texture to the kind of afternoon or evening this part of France can deliver.
Booking difficulty is rated Hard. With limited weekly service , four dinner sessions and one lunch per week , availability fills quickly. No website or phone number is confirmed in current data; check third-party reservation platforms or contact the restaurant directly. Book as far in advance as possible, particularly for Saturday lunch, which is the only midday service available.
| Detail | Numéro 3 | Comparable (Paris 1-star) |
|---|---|---|
| Price range | €€€ | €€€–€€€€ |
| Dinner service | Thu–Sat, 7:30 PM–9 PM | Typically 5–6 nights/week |
| Lunch service | Saturday only, 12 PM–12:45 PM | Often Thu–Sat |
| Closed | Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed | Varies |
| Style | Contemporary, garden-driven Modern Cuisine | Varies |
| Booking difficulty | Hard | Hard to Very Hard |
| Location | Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre (Île-de-France village) | Paris centre |
Explore more of what the area offers: bars in Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre, wineries near Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre, and experiences in Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre.
| Venue | Cuisine | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Numéro 3 | Modern Cuisine | This village was once home to famous art dealer Ambroise Vollard, as well as Picabia, Picasso and Cendrars, who is buried here. Julie and Laurent Trochain run their lovely restaurant in an entirely refurbished former hunting lodge. What a transformation! Gone are the beams, the fireplace and even the traditional façade, replaced by an eminently contemporary, geometrical, designer finish. Laurent Trochain, originally from Maubeuge, trained in top establishments, not least at Pierre Gagnaire. He champions the produce of his region, starting with his own kitchen garden (vegetables and aromatic herbs), and from his beloved small-scale local producers. His vegetarian menu is gaining in popularity.; Michelin 1 Star (2024) | Hard | — |
| Plénitude | Contemporary French | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Pierre Gagnaire | French, Creative | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen | Creative | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Kei | Contemporary French, Modern Cuisine | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Le Cinq - Four Seasons Hôtel George V | French, Modern Cuisine | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
A quick look at how Numéro 3 measures up.
Groups should approach with caution. Numéro 3 operates from a refurbished former hunting lodge with a deliberately intimate, contemporary format, and its limited weekly service — four dinner slots and one Saturday lunch — means large parties will struggle to find availability. Smaller groups of two to four are the practical fit here. check the venue's official channels to confirm capacity, as no booking system is listed publicly.
Saturday lunch is the only midday service available, running 12 PM to 12:45 PM, which makes it a tight window. Dinner runs Thursday through Saturday, 7:30 PM to 9 PM, giving the kitchen more room to work with. For a first visit, dinner on a Friday or Saturday gives you the full experience without the time pressure of the lunch slot.
This is a Michelin-starred (2024) restaurant in a village about 40km west of Paris, run by Julie and Laurent Trochain in a building that has been fully redesigned into a geometric, contemporary space — nothing about it reads like a traditional country inn. Laurent Trochain trained at Pierre Gagnaire and sources heavily from his own kitchen garden and local small producers. Plan the journey in advance: Monday, Tuesday, and Sunday are closed, and booking is rated hard given the limited weekly seats.
Yes — it fits a special occasion well, provided you're comfortable with a destination format. The combination of a 2024 Michelin star, an intimate converted hunting lodge setting, and a menu rooted in hyper-local produce gives the meal a clear sense of occasion without the noise of a Paris grand dining room. Book well ahead: with only five service sessions per week at €€€ pricing, availability is tight and last-minute options are unlikely.
At €€€ pricing with a 2024 Michelin star and a 4.8 Google rating across over 500 reviews, the value case is strong relative to comparable starred restaurants in Paris. You're paying Michelin-level cooking without the Paris surcharge on wine, water, or bread. The trade-off is access: no website, no listed phone number, and a five-session weekly schedule mean getting a table requires effort. If you can secure a booking, the price-to-quality ratio beats most one-star options in the capital.
The vegetarian menu at Numéro 3 is specifically noted as growing in popularity, which suggests the kitchen treats it as a genuine option rather than an afterthought. Laurent Trochain's focus on kitchen garden vegetables and aromatic herbs means plant-forward cooking is already central to the menu's logic. For other dietary needs, check the venue's official channels ahead of your visit — given the bespoke, produce-led format, communication in advance is the practical move.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
