Restaurant Reviews: Apicius in Paris

Retooling an established restaurant with a crowd of devoted regulars is a challenge for any restaurateur, but this was especially true when it came to Apicius, a favourite power table of corporate and political France in Paris’s 8th arrondissement, not far from the Champs-Elysées.

Formerly run by chef Jean-Pierre Vigato, this table – named for the Roman epicurean said to have penned one of the world’s first cookbooks – occupies an exquisite limestone mansion that was built in 1860 for the Marquis Auguste de Talhouët-Roy on the site of the former stables of the Comte d’Artois, the brother of King Louis XVI. And one of its greatest attributes is that it’s surrounded by a beautiful garden where, weather permitting, meals are served.

Truth be told, I never much liked this place under Vigato, since I found the food uninteresting and expensive and the service stuffy and aloof to those who weren’t immediately recognisable as French cabinet ministers. But all of that’s changed since brilliant young restaurateur Mathieu Pacaud, 37, the son of Bernard Pacaud of the Michelin three-star L’Ambroisie, took over the restaurant and gave it a new décor and a new menu. Esteemed French interior designer François-Joseph Graf, who did the elegant décor at L’Ambroisie, signed the new look for Apicius. He took his inspiration from the Louis XV architecture of the building, but instead of doing a reverent reproduction of the visual idioms of the era, he puckishly but politely broke the conventions of 18th-century classicism to give the restaurant a younger look. The fitted trompe l’oeil carpeting in the restaurant’s bar and small, intimate dining rooms apes the octagonal stone tile floor patterns of the epoch, while animal print chairs and oyster-grey wainscoting and panelling have the tongue-in-cheek drama of theatre scenery. Overall, the new look at Apicius is nonchalantly chic in the best Parisian traditions of elegance that never tries too hard.