Frédéric Simonin Paris

Frédéric Simonin sits on Rue Bayen, a quiet residential stretch far enough from the chaotic sweep of the Champs-Élysées to feel like a different city. The restaurant holds one star in the Michelin Guide and specializes in contemporary French cooking.

While the district leans toward traditional bistros, this room runs smart and relies on a creative approach that distinguishes it from its neighborhood peers. The formal, elegant tone provides a necessary counterpoint to the busy tourist circuits a twenty-minute walk away. Most visitors come here to escape the theater of the larger boulevards, finding that the precise, modern execution of the kitchen is a better use of an evening than the crowded terraces found closer to the Arc de Triomphe.