Restaurant in Saint-Maximin, France
Consecutive Michelin stars. Book ahead.
Le Verbois in Saint-Maximin holds a consecutive Michelin star under chef Philippe Zeiger and earns a 4.6 from 671 Google reviews — strong evidence of consistent quality at the €€€€ tier. This is a deliberate destination north of Paris, best booked for a significant occasion and worth timing to the season, particularly autumn when the menu's range is at its widest.
If you are planning a significant anniversary dinner, a milestone celebration, or a serious food trip through northern France's Oise department, Le Verbois in Saint-Maximin is the right call. Chef Philippe Zeiger has held a Michelin star consecutively through 2024 and 2025, which means this is not a one-season wonder — it is a kitchen that has demonstrated consistent technical discipline across multiple guide cycles. At a €€€€ price point, you are committing to a proper gastronomic evening, and the 4.6 rating across 671 Google reviews confirms that the room delivers on that promise at scale, not just for critics.
This is a destination restaurant in the truest logistical sense: Saint-Maximin is a small commune in the Oise, roughly an hour north of Paris, and you will not stumble into Le Verbois by accident. The address , 6 La Grande Folie , already signals that this is a place you travel to deliberately. Plan the trip, book accommodation nearby (see our Saint-Maximin hotels guide), and treat the evening as the main event rather than a stop on a longer itinerary.
French gastronomic cooking at this level lives and dies by the calendar, and Le Verbois is no exception. The Oise sits in a productive agricultural corridor where the seasons shift meaningfully: spring brings the first asparagus and morels from nearby forests; summer pushes into stone fruits, garden herbs, and the kind of vegetable abundance that lets a skilled kitchen show restraint rather than technique for its own sake; autumn is when the cooking gets serious , game, mushrooms, root vegetables, and the heavy aromatics that make northern French cuisine worth travelling for; winter menus lean into richness and preservation, the kind of food that justifies a long drive and a bottle of Burgundy.
If you have already visited once, the strongest reason to return is timing the second trip differently from the first. A diner who came in July will find a meaningfully different menu in October or February. Zeiger's Michelin recognition is partly a credential for consistency, but at this category of restaurant the real reward for regulars is watching how a kitchen interprets the same region across four distinct growing seasons. Plan your second visit for late autumn if your first was in warmer months , game preparation and the depth of cold-weather saucing represent a different register of the kitchen's capability.
For context on how French gastronomic kitchens in smaller towns approach seasonal rotation, it is worth comparing Le Verbois to similarly-placed destination restaurants. Auberge du Vieux Puits in Fontjoncouse and Bras in Laguiole both operate on strong terroir-driven seasonal frameworks in comparably remote settings , useful reference points for what serious seasonal French cooking outside a major city looks and feels like. Closer to Le Verbois's Paris-adjacent geography, Espadon in Paris and La Maison d'Uzès in Uzès offer gastronomic French cooking at comparable price tiers if you want a same-trip urban alternative.
The venue sits in a property called La Grande Folie , a name that carries the slightly theatrical air of a grand country house. While specific interior details are not confirmed in our data, the combination of a rural Oise setting, a Michelin-starred kitchen, and a price point at the leading of the market strongly suggests a formal, considered dining room rather than a casual bistro format. Arrive expecting a full gastronomic service: multiple courses, an attentive front-of-house team, and an experience calibrated to the €€€€ tier. This is not a venue where you drop in for two courses and leave quickly.
The aroma register at a restaurant like this , operating from what is effectively a country estate , is part of what distinguishes the experience from a city fine-dining room. Kitchens in rural gastronomic houses tend to carry the scent of the surrounding land into the cooking: stocks made from local bones and foraged aromatics, butter from regional dairies, the particular woodiness of autumn fungi when they are in season. Whether or not you consciously notice it, that quality of kitchen smell is one of the markers that separates a genuinely terroir-rooted restaurant from a technically proficient urban one.
Le Verbois is hard to book. A consecutively-starred Michelin restaurant in a small commune operates with a limited number of covers, and demand from Paris-based diners making the 60-90 minute journey means tables fill well in advance. No online booking link is confirmed in our current data, so your leading approach is to contact the restaurant directly by email or phone , check the official website for current reservation details. For a landmark occasion (anniversary, birthday, significant celebration), book four to six weeks out at minimum, and contact earlier if you have a fixed date that cannot flex.
If you are making the trip specifically for a seasonal menu window , autumn game, for instance , factor in that those peak-season tables are the most contested. Build flexibility into your travel dates if you can, and be prepared to confirm quickly when availability opens. See our full Saint-Maximin restaurants guide for context on the broader dining scene while you are in the area, and check our Saint-Maximin bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide to plan the full day around your reservation.
For serious diners building a French gastronomic itinerary, Le Verbois occupies a specific and useful slot: it is the Michelin-quality destination north of Paris that does not require you to eat in the city. Comparable rural-gastronomic reference points worth knowing include Flocons de Sel in Megève, Troisgros in Ouches, Auberge de l'Ill in Illhaeusern, and Paul Bocuse in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or , all of them destination restaurants that require deliberate travel and reward it. In the south, AM par Alexandre Mazzia in Marseille and Mirazur in Menton operate at the leading of the contemporary French canon if your itinerary takes you further. Assiette Champenoise in Reims and Au Crocodile in Strasbourg are the closest geographic comparators in the Paris-adjacent north-and-east band. Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen is the Paris alternative if you want starred cooking without the drive.
Quick reference: Michelin 1 Star (2024, 2025) | Chef: Philippe Zeiger | Price: €€€€ | Google: 4.6 / 671 reviews | Location: Saint-Maximin, Oise, France | Booking difficulty: Hard , contact restaurant directly, 4–6 weeks minimum for peak dates.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Le Verbois | French | Gastronomic | €€€€ | Category: Remarkable; Michelin 1 Star (2025); Michelin 1 Star (2024) | Hard | — |
| 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 | — |
| Mirazur | Modern French, Creative | €€€€ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
Comparing your options in Saint-Maximin for this tier.
Groups are possible, but a consecutively-starred Michelin restaurant in a small commune like Saint-Maximin operates with limited covers — expect a tight dining room. check the venue's official channels to ask about private dining or group reservation policies, as larger parties may need to book well in advance. Parties of 6 or more should enquire early; the demand from Paris-based diners adds pressure.
Le Verbois is a €€€€ Michelin-starred French gastronomic restaurant — treat it accordingly. Smart attire is expected: jacket for men is a safe baseline for this tier of French dining, though the countryside setting at La Grande Folie may allow slightly more relaxed formality than a Paris grand table. When in doubt, dress up rather than down.
Specific menu items are not published in available venue records, so ordering specifics are best confirmed on booking. At a consecutively Michelin-starred French gastronomic restaurant like this, the full tasting menu is the intended format — opting for it gives you the clearest picture of what Philippe Zeiger is doing in the kitchen. Ask staff about any seasonal dishes from the Oise's agricultural output when you arrive.
Yes — this is one of its clearest use cases. A Michelin-starred French gastronomic restaurant in a country-house setting (La Grande Folie) at the €€€€ price point is well-suited to anniversaries, milestone dinners, or a serious food trip through the Oise. If you want a more urban celebratory setting, Kei or Le Cinq in Paris offer Michelin-starred alternatives with city atmosphere. Le Verbois is the better call when you want to leave Paris behind entirely.
There are no documented Michelin-starred alternatives within Saint-Maximin itself. For comparable French gastronomic cooking in the broader region, you would need to travel toward Paris, where options like Kei or Le Cinq (Four Seasons George V) operate at similar or higher price points. Le Verbois is the destination in its immediate area — if you are coming from Paris, that distinction is the whole point.
For the format, yes — a consecutive Michelin star awarded in both 2024 and 2025 under Philippe Zeiger is a meaningful signal that the kitchen is consistent, not just credentialed once. At €€€€ pricing, the tasting menu is how this kind of French gastronomic cooking is meant to be experienced. If you prefer à la carte flexibility or want to keep costs lower, the full tasting menu commitment may not suit you — but that would also be true of any restaurant at this level.
At €€€€, the value case rests on the consecutive Michelin stars (2024 and 2025) and the specific appeal of destination dining outside Paris in the Oise. You are paying for Philippe Zeiger's kitchen and a grand-country-house experience that you cannot replicate in the city. Compared to Paris Michelin options at equivalent price, Le Verbois offers a different proposition: lower logistical convenience, higher atmosphere payoff if the countryside setting is what you want.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
