The Parisian suburbs also feature great places likely to please foodies. In upper Montreuil, the Villa9Trois restaurant has been an institution for now 30 years. In 2022, it gave itself a youth therapy with the arrival of a new chef, Camille Saint-M’Leux.

Trained at the Ecole Ferrandi, the young 27-year-old chef learnt the ropes from the greatest: Arnaud Pitrois at the Clos des Gourmets, Alain Solivérès and François Daubinet at the Taillevent, Michael Bartocetti at the L’Abeille, and of course Christian Le Squer at the Cinq aka George V Michelin-starred restaurant. Camille Saint-M’Leux grew up with the will to deliver committed and sustainable cuisine, and the Villa9Trois – bundled up in French “staid” cuisine for years – was the perfect place to complete this project successfully.

From the moment you arrive at the Villa9Trois, you get aware of this new doing with the installation on the restaurant field of a vegetable kitchen garden with aromatic herbs, a henhouse, as well as a citrus fruit greenhouse, all used as a pantry for the restaurant kitchen.

The young chef is teeming with ideas, helped by Curtis Fallourd – also trained at the Cinq – and the wonderful outdoor area of the restaurant enjoying green paths and a beautiful big terrace we can already guess next summer will be full, enabling him to express his ideas wholeheartedly.

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On the menu of the Villa9trois then, gourmet dishes paying tribute to the French cuisine, in a modern and new light, to be discovered in a 4-course menu (€59) or 6-course menu (€79), or off the menu. For instance, a very cheeky suckling pig coming from the Ferme de Châteauneuf served with cabbage and buttermilk (€32), veal’s kidney (€42) prepared not seared as in other restaurants but baked with old Comté cheese and colorful cauliflower; or even the chef’s signature dish, the Boeuf de Châteauneuf beef and smoked herring roe covered in a mirror-like squid ink veil.

In addition to these great cuts of meats, wonderful seafood also displays their assets on the menu of the Villa9Trois, like this Roscoff spider crab, just seasoned and served with anise broth (€22), this glazed urchin, candied bacon and cauliflower, or this exquisite European pollock perfectly cooked and served with delicious braised endive and sunflower praline.

As for desserts, chef Saint-M’Leux has surrounded himself with Sicilian pastry chef Aldo Gennuso – trained at the Maison Astor and the Loiseau Rive Gauche. The pastry chef supplies a sweet expertise through his Palerme-Turin (€18) like a journey to Italy based on bitter orange, gianduja, and Piedmont hazelnut, what a delight.

A great place in Montreuil that definitely enjoys a new youth.