Restaurant in Paris, France
Chef-driven carte blanche, book weeks ahead.
Akrame is a chef-driven creative French restaurant near La Madeleine, running a no-choice carte blanche format at €€€€. La Liste rates it 82 points (Prestige, 2026) and OAD places it at #94 in Classical Europe. Book for a special occasion or a serious lunch — closed weekends, so plan accordingly.
Akrame scores 82 points on La Liste 2026 (down from 85 in 2025) and sits at #94 on Opinionated About Dining's Classical Europe ranking for 2024, with a Google rating of 4.5 across 400 reviews. At the €€€€ price tier, it competes directly with Paris's most serious creative kitchens. Book it if you want technically ambitious carte blanche cooking in an intimate setting without the institutional grandeur of a palace hotel dining room. If you need a more conservative or classic French experience, look elsewhere.
Akrame sits on Rue Tronchet in the 8th arrondissement, a short walk from La Madeleine. The address sounds conventional for high-end Paris dining, but the entrance is anything but — the restaurant is screened behind a large coach gateway, which means first-time visitors often walk past it. Once inside, the interior takes its visual cue from the work of painter Pierre Soulages: the room is dominated by black, offset by photographs and sculptures. It is a deliberate aesthetic, not a generic fine-dining backdrop, and it signals immediately that this is a chef-driven space rather than a hotel-backed operation.
Chef Akrame Benallal runs a carte blanche format, meaning there is no à la carte menu to fall back on. You are committing to whatever direction the kitchen is taking that service. For guests who want control over what lands on the table, this is a deal-breaker. For guests who trust the kitchen's judgment, it is the correct format for this level of cooking. La Liste's description of the menu as a "treasure trove of bold surprises" is marketing language, but the underlying point holds: the dishes here are inventive, ingredient-led, and not designed to play it safe.
Akrame is open Tuesday through Friday for both lunch (12 PM to 2:30 PM) and dinner (8 PM to 9:30 PM), and on Monday for both services as well. Saturday and Sunday are closed entirely, which matters for trip planning — if your Paris visit is weekend-heavy, you need to account for this.
For most visitors, lunch is the smarter booking. Creative kitchens at this tier almost always offer a lunch formula that delivers the same kitchen at a lower entry price, and booking at midday is typically easier than securing an evening seat at a well-reviewed carte blanche restaurant. Lunch also lets you extend into the afternoon without the pressure of a late-evening finish. If your visit is professional or semi-formal , a business meal, a pre-theatre occasion, or a long first date , dinner at Akrame has more atmosphere and a slower pace, with the last seating at 9:30 PM giving the kitchen time to focus. Either way, the cooking is the same kitchen expressing the same philosophy; the difference is ambient energy and likely price tier. Note that dinner last entry is 9:30 PM, so this is not a venue for late arrivals.
For a special occasion where atmosphere is as important as the food itself, dinner wins on mood. For value and ease of access, lunch is the pragmatic choice. If you are visiting Paris specifically for high-level eating and want to maximise coverage across multiple restaurants, using Akrame as a lunch rather than a dinner frees your evenings for other bookings.
At €€€€, Akrame is priced for celebration dining. The intimate, design-forward room , dark, sculpture-accented, deliberately atmospheric , suits a serious birthday, anniversary, or significant business dinner better than a casual group meal. The carte blanche format reinforces the occasion: handing over the decision to the kitchen is itself a statement of intent, and it removes the negotiation that can flatten a special-occasion meal into a committee exercise. Solo diners and couples are the natural audience here. Large groups should consider whether a fixed tasting format works for everyone at the table before booking.
Against Paris's creative €€€€ field, Akrame occupies a specific position: ambitious and chef-driven, but without the institutional scale of Pierre Gagnaire or the vegetable-forward discipline of Arpège. If bold, surprise-led tasting menus in a tightly designed room appeal, Akrame delivers. If you want more formal service architecture or a kitchen with a longer public track record, you have better options in the same price tier. See the full comparison below.
For broader Paris dining research, Pearl's full Paris restaurants guide covers the category in depth. You can also explore Paris hotels, Paris bars, Paris wineries, and Paris experiences through Pearl. For comparison across France's leading creative kitchens, Pearl covers Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen, Le Pré Catelan, Kei, and beyond Paris, Mirazur in Menton, Flocons de Sel in Megève, AM par Alexandre Mazzia in Marseille, Troisgros in Ouches, Bras in Laguiole, Anne de Bretagne in La Plaine-sur-Mer, Auberge de l'Ill in Illhaeusern, and Paul Bocuse in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or.
Lunch is the practical choice: easier to book, often lower in price, and it frees your evening for other Paris dining. Dinner works better for special occasions where atmosphere and pace matter more than efficiency. The kitchen is the same either way.
Yes, if carte blanche formats suit you. Akrame's 82-point La Liste score and #94 OAD Classical Europe ranking confirm this is a kitchen operating at serious creative level. The value question is whether you want to commit to a no-choice format at €€€€. If you do, the cooking justifies it. If you prefer selecting dishes, this is the wrong venue.
Yes. The dark, sculpture-led interior, the chef-driven carte blanche format, and the €€€€ price point all point toward celebration dining. It works well for anniversaries, significant birthdays, and business dinners where the setting needs to carry weight. Couples and pairs of two will get more from the room than large groups.
Nothing in the available data suggests solo dining is unwelcome, and a chef-driven tasting format is often more enjoyable alone than with a group , you engage with the kitchen on its own terms. At €€€€, solo dining here is a deliberate investment rather than a casual choice. Book lunch for a slightly lower commitment level.
For creative cooking at the same price tier, Pierre Gagnaire offers more institutional scale and a longer track record. Arpège is the choice if vegetable-forward cooking appeals. Kei blends French technique with Japanese precision and is worth considering for something with a different flavour register. Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen is the grander, more formal option in the same creative tier.
No group-specific capacity data is available. Given the intimate, design-led space and the fixed carte blanche format, large groups will find this less flexible than a restaurant with à la carte options. Contact the restaurant directly to confirm group availability before planning a party of more than four.
Booking difficulty is rated easy, which means you are unlikely to need to plan months in advance. That said, for a specific date , particularly a Friday lunch or dinner , booking one to two weeks out is sensible. If your dates are flexible, you have more room to move.
No dress code is listed, but the €€€€ price tier, La Liste Prestige category, and design-forward interior point toward smart dress as the baseline. Treat it as you would any serious Paris fine-dining room: sharp casual to formal works; avoid overly casual clothing.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akrame | French, Creative | €€€€ | La Liste Top Restaurants (2026): 82pts; Category: Prestige; La Liste Top Restaurants (2025): 85pts; A stone’s throw from La Madeleine district, Akrame Benallal, a live wire if ever there was, operates in a surprisingly secretive establishment, hidden by a huge coach gateway. A fan of Pierre Soulages’ work, the fashionably trendy, cutting-edge interior is dominated by black, enhanced by a few photos and sculptures… The menu shines the spotlight on first-class ingredients, inventive recipes and carefully crafted dishes; the “carte blanche” menus are a treasure trove of bold surprises.; Opinionated About Dining Classical in Europe Ranked #94 (2024); Michelin 1 Star (2024); Opinionated About Dining Classical in Europe Highly Recommended (2023) | Easy | — |
| 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 | — |
| L'Ambroisie | French, Classic 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 | — |
| Pierre Gagnaire | French, Creative | €€€€ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
What to weigh when choosing between Akrame and alternatives.
Akrame can work for solo diners, but it is not purpose-built for it. The intimate, design-forward room is more naturally suited to pairs or small groups. Solo diners who prefer a counter format with built-in engagement will find that style more reliably at omakase-format venues. That said, if the carte blanche menu is your focus rather than the social dynamic, solo is manageable at lunch, which runs a shorter window from 12 PM to 2:30 PM.
Kei is the closest alternative for creative cooking with a personal chef identity at a comparable price tier, and arguably easier to book. If you want something more classical and institutionally scaled, Le Cinq at the Four Seasons George V offers more ceremony for the same €€€€ spend. For a more austere, ingredient-first approach, L'Ambroisie is the reference point in Paris — though significantly harder to access.
At €€€€, the value case depends on your appetite for chef-driven surprise. Akrame's carte blanche format — backed by an 82-point La Liste 2026 score and a #94 OAD Classical Europe ranking — delivers inventive cooking with high-quality sourcing. If you want to choose your own dishes or prefer a more conventional format, the spend is harder to justify. Book it specifically for the tasting experience or not at all.
Yes, this is one of the stronger cases for booking Akrame. The room is deliberately atmospheric — dark, sculpture-accented, design-led — and the carte blanche format creates a sense of occasion without you having to orchestrate it. At €€€€ with La Liste recognition, it reads as a serious dinner. Birthdays and anniversaries for guests who appreciate chef-driven cooking over conventional tasting-menu pomp are the sweet spot.
Akrame is an intimate restaurant, and the carte blanche format does not flex well to large parties. Groups of 2 to 4 are the practical ceiling for a comfortable experience. Larger groups should check the venue's official channels to confirm capacity, as the venue data does not specify a private dining room. For groups of 6 or more in the 8th, venues with dedicated private rooms are a safer choice.
Book at least 3 to 4 weeks in advance for dinner. Lunch may be more accessible on shorter notice, particularly mid-week, but Akrame's reputation — La Liste top-ranked, OAD Classical Europe #94 — means it does not stay available close to date. If you have a fixed travel window, book as early as possible. Saturday and Sunday are closed, so your window is Monday through Friday only.
Dinner is the more complete experience at Akrame — the atmospheric, darkened interior is designed for evening, and the dinner window runs to 9:30 PM, giving the meal room to breathe. Lunch (12 PM to 2:30 PM) is the practical choice if you are managing a full day itinerary or prefer a lighter spend commitment, as tasting menus at lunch in this tier often run at a reduced price, though specific pricing is not confirmed in the venue record.
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