Restaurant in Rennes, France
Rennes' most serious tasting menu, reopening soon.
Ima holds a Michelin star (2024) and a 4.8-star rating from 828 reviews, making it the most technically ambitious tasting menu in Rennes. Chef Julien Lemarié's Franco-Japanese cooking — broths, algae, aromatic infusions — is precise and personal. Note: currently closed, with reopening planned for mid-September. Book the counter seat for the full experience.
Before anything else: Ima is currently closed, with a planned reopening in mid-September. If you're planning a trip to Rennes around a meal here, build your itinerary around that timeline and book as soon as reservations open. This is one of the harder tables to secure in Brittany, and the closure will only compress demand when doors reopen.
With 828 Google reviews averaging 4.8 stars and a Michelin star earned in 2024, Ima sits at the leading of Rennes' dining options — and its €€€€ price tag is consistent with that position. Chef Julien Lemarié has cooked in London, Tokyo, and Singapore, and that international résumé shapes everything on the plate: tasting menus built around broths, infusions, aromatic plants, spices, and algae, with a thread of Japanese technique running through distinctly French regional produce. The result is cuisine that feels precise without being cold, and personal without being self-.
Ima's kitchen works in the register you'd expect from a chef who trained across three continents and named his restaurant after the Japanese word for "now." The tasting menus draw on Breton ingredients , this is Rennes, and the regional larder is part of the premise , but the techniques reach further east. Expect dishes built around concentrated broths and delicate infusions rather than rich sauces, with umami depth achieved through algae and fermentation rather than butter and cream. The flavour profile tends toward restraint: clean, layered, and more interested in precision than abundance. If you're coming from a traditional French fine dining context, the cooking here reads lighter and more fragmented in a way that rewards attention. For the explorer-type diner who seeks depth in every course, that's exactly the point.
For context on where Ima sits within France's broader creative fine dining conversation, the sensibility has something in common with the philosophy at Arpège in Paris , ingredients-forward, technique-driven , though Lemarié's Asian influences give Ima its own distinct register. If you're travelling specifically for tasting-menu cooking in France, comparable experiences exist at Mirazur in Menton or Bras in Laguiole, but neither covers the same Franco-Japanese ground. For creative cooking at this level in a Spanish context, Cocina Hermanos Torres in Barcelona offers an instructive comparison.
The editorial angle here matters: at Ima, the bar isn't a waiting area or a casual fallback. Lemarié's own framing positions the counter seat as the full Japanese experience , the place where you watch the kitchen work and engage with the food at close range. If you're choosing between a table and a bar seat, and the format of tasting-menu dining means you're going to be in the room for two-plus hours anyway, the counter is the better call. You get context that a table doesn't provide. The service interaction tends to be more direct, the pacing more visible, and the overall experience more immersive. Request it specifically when booking , it's not guaranteed and the room is small.
For the full Rennes bar and drinks picture, see our full Rennes bars guide.
Ima is located at 20 Boulevard de la Tour d'Auvergne in Rennes. It carries a €€€€ price designation, which at Michelin-starred tasting menu level in provincial France typically means €100–€180 per person before wine , though no confirmed per-head figure is available in the venue data, so treat that as a bracket rather than a quote. Book by checking directly once the September reopening is confirmed; there is no booking link or phone number in the current venue record. Given the 2024 Michelin star and the post-closure demand spike, expect availability to be tight from reopening day. Booking the same week as reopening is unlikely to be realistic , plan for at least three to four weeks out.
Dress code is not formally stated, but the price tier and Michelin context put this in smart casual territory at minimum. Rennes is not Paris, and the room is unlikely to enforce strict formality, but arriving underdressed at a €€€€ starred table is always the wrong call.
If your schedule doesn't align with Ima's September return, Rennes has alternatives worth considering. For the broader dining picture, see our full Rennes restaurants guide. For accommodation planning around a meal of this calibre, our Rennes hotels guide covers the options. Other curated Rennes experiences are in our experiences guide.
Book Ima if you want the most technically serious tasting menu in Rennes, and you're willing to plan around both the reopening timeline and the booking difficulty that comes with a freshly starred room. The Michelin recognition in 2024 is recent enough that the price-to-prestige ratio still favours the diner compared to longer-established starred addresses in Paris like Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen or Flocons de Sel in Megève. The Franco-Japanese flavour profile and the counter experience give Ima a specific identity that's worth seeking out if that's your register. If you want something in Rennes at a lower price point, the comparison section below maps out the alternatives clearly.
See also: Estime, Bombance, Essentiel, POF, and Breizh Café Rennes for the rest of the Rennes picture. For French fine dining comparisons further afield, Troisgros in Ouches and Auberge de l'Ill in Illhaeusern offer useful benchmarks for what a starred table in the French regions can deliver.
| Venue | Cuisine | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ima | Creative | Category: Remarkable; (Temporarily closed, reopening planned for mid-September) “Cooking has always been a means of travel for me”, explains chef Julien Lemarié, who has plied his trade in London, Tokyo and Singapore. At his restaurant, Ima, which means “now” in Japanese, this talented culinary technician conjures up instinctive cuisine showcased on tasting menus that combine subtlety with regional and Asian influences. Lemarié enhances his dishes with broths, infusions, spices, aromatic plants and algae. And for those keen to enjoy the full Japanese experience, make sure you take a seat at the bar. It's now your turn to travel!; Michelin 1 Star (2024) | Hard | — |
| Estime | Modern Cuisine | Unknown | — | |
| Breizh Café Rennes | Breton | Unknown | — | |
| La Petite Ourse | Farm to table | Unknown | — | |
| La Table du Balthazar | Modern Cuisine | Unknown | — | |
| POF | Creative | Unknown | — |
A quick look at how Ima measures up.
Current hours data for Ima isn't confirmed in our records, so lunch versus dinner availability post-reopening is worth checking directly when bookings open for mid-September. What is clear is that Ima operates a tasting menu format, meaning the full experience is the same regardless of service — there's no abbreviated lunch menu documented in available venue data. Plan accordingly and book as soon as the reopening is confirmed.
Yes, and chef Julien Lemarié specifically frames the bar seat as the full Japanese counter experience — it's not a casual fallback. Lemarié describes it as the position for anyone who wants the most immersive read on his cooking, which draws on time spent in Tokyo and Singapore. If you're a solo diner or a pair, request the bar seat when booking; it's the format the kitchen is designed around.
Ima is currently closed and planning to reopen in mid-September, so build that timeline into any trip to Rennes. When it's open, expect a tasting menu structured around regional Breton ingredients crossed with Japanese and broader Asian technique — broths, infusions, algae, aromatic plants. It holds a Michelin 1 Star (2024) and carries a €€€€ price designation, so this is a planned, occasion-driven meal, not a casual drop-in.
Ima is a Michelin-starred restaurant at the €€€€ price point, which in a French regional city context signals smart dress as a reasonable baseline. The venue database doesn't specify a dress code, but a tasting menu counter at this level in Rennes calls for more than casual clothing. Err on the side of neat and considered rather than formal.
For food alone, Ima is the most credentialled tasting menu in Rennes — Michelin 1 Star in 2024, with a kitchen that combines Breton regionality with technique developed in London, Tokyo, and Singapore. At €€€€, it's a serious spend, but the cooking is precise rather than decorative, and the bar format gives you direct access to that. If tasting menus are your format and you're already in Rennes, the answer is yes.
Yes, particularly for two people who want the counter experience. The format — a tasting menu built around instinctive, technically precise cooking with Japanese influence — is better suited to a couple or a small group with genuine interest in the food than a large celebration dinner. The €€€€ price and Michelin 1 Star status mark it clearly as occasion dining, not a neighbourhood regular.
At €€€€ with a Michelin 1 Star, Ima sits at the top of the Rennes fine dining range, and the cooking backs the price: a chef with stints in London, Tokyo, and Singapore, tasting menus built on broths, infusions, and local produce, and a counter seat that's genuinely part of the experience. Compared to other Rennes options at lower price points, Ima's value case is specifically for diners who want the full technical tasting menu format — not for those seeking a more relaxed dinner.
Location
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