A New Wave of Asian Restauranteurs and Artists Creating a Cultural Shift in Paris

28 December 2023

In September, hours after landing in Paris, I headed straight to Signature Montmartre, a French Korean bistro that friends had been lavishing with praise. Already, this is a series of words I find startling. I had lived and worked in Paris for a while during college; I go back when I can, and until this trip, I didn’t recall noticing a Korean shop or restaurant here. The bistro’s lights shone from large windows like an inviting beacon, guiding me to food that was, as reported, astonishing: French cuisine shot through with distinctly Korean flavors, such as tender prawn-filled perilla in a curry aioli, followed by a fig tart with jujube cream, one of the most delicate, fascinating pastries I’ve ever had.

I talked about all of this with Signature Montmartre’s pastry chef, Youngrim Kim. We spoke in Korean, ringed by convivial diners conversing in French. “As Korea’s culture has become more known in the world, there’s been an explosive growth of Korean food in Paris,” said Kim. “People come in asking for kimchi.”

It hasn’t been at all easy, though, to bring Korean ingredients into a pastry such as the fig tart, which in Paris is generally considered to be French with little space for chefs diverging from expected flavors. People still baulk at hints of spiciness in a pastry, said Kim, let alone staples such as doenjang, a soya bean paste, or gochugaru, a powder made of dried chillies. But Kim persists, and hallelujah.

This would turn out to be a leitmotif of the trip: French Asian artists, chefs, and others are making increasingly celebrated creations, and doing so in ways that let them be seen, eaten, and experienced outside the boxes of their compatriots’ expectations. I’d last visited Paris in 2019. Since then, I’d heard and read of a striking rise in the prominence of Asian food, art, and fashion in the city.

France has fraught historical relationships with East and Southeast Asian countries and cultures, and by fraught I also mean colonial. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and other parts of Asia are former French colonies. In my own experiences of Paris, I’d witnessed very little celebration of anything Asian. The new focus on Asian food cultures sounds, perhaps, different. In conversation, Parisians suggested that this change reflected the times: the more global awareness of millennials and Gen Z’ers, as well as the exposure to other cultures and cuisines on social media, has softened the Parisian stubbornness to keep white France the focus. The change seemed considerable.

During this year’s Fashion Week, for instance, the superstars of Paris’s shows were K-pop idols. In 2015, Paris began hosting an annual art fair called Asia Now, bringing together work from contemporary Asian artists, which, at last count, had hosted 65 galleries and more than 200 artists from 26 countries. I was intrigued by what I was hearing. Intrigued but with mixed feelings. Paris is a city I deeply love, yet it’s also a city where I’ve contended with frequent and vocal racism—more, perhaps, than in any other city I’ve lived in. I grew up in a part of the United States with a plurality of Asians, and Paris is where I began learning first-hand just how exotic I can look to some people.

At Pho Tài, a cherished Vietnamese restaurant beloved by diners, I met Grace Ly to discuss these complexities. Ly is a French Cambodian and Chinese activist, writer, and podcast host who has written extensively about Asian cuisines in Paris. On her recommendation, I ordered pho satay, a bewitching soup with beef, garlic, and peanuts. Its flavors were so gorgeously layered that I’ve thought about it every day since.

I asked Ly about the recent surge in the popularity of Asian restaurants and culture. “Tourism being essential to the country, the image of French gastronomy is preserved in a traditional way,” said Ly. But more recently, and with the rise of social media, “France could no longer resist the ascension of East and Southeast Asian food on the global scene,” along with excellent cuisines from other parts of the world. “We no longer need traditional journalists to prescribe trends, and that’s made all the difference: peers recommend joints that do not need validation by the dominant culture.”

Similar dynamics are driving a rising interest in contemporary Asian art. Asia Now has grown rapidly from its first incarnation in 2015, when it had just 18 galleries. And George Chen, a restaurateur, is scheduled to open a massive multistorey food emporium called Asia Live in the Carrousel du Louvre shopping centre. From as early as 2024, people will be able to stop for dim sum and roast duck before proceeding to view masterpieces of art.

I visited several galleries that have taken part in Asia Now. At the first gallery, A2Z Gallery, I stood for a long time, desperately moved, in front of a vast all-black painting by Bao Vuong. He’d left Vietnam in the late 1970s as a refugee with his family, and this work depicted a luminous impasto ocean at night. If I could have, I’d have bought it on the spot; I did not want to leave it behind. A second space hosted Chinese artist Xie Fan’s first solo exhibition in Europe, and I was enthralled by shimmering paintings that layered gold foil and oil on terracotta panels.

In conversations with French Asian people, I kept hearing that, while existing prejudices are thriving, the work of a growing cohort of creative Asians has become increasingly visible. Kim Lê, a French-born ceramist whose studio has captivating earth-toned vases, urns, and other pottery, said a great hope is that her wares will be able to be seen without cliché-riddled racial filters.

Another prominent example is Céline Chung, a restaurateur who has opened four thriving eateries in the city. I met her in Bao Express, a vast dim sum parlour. Asked if she had a guiding philosophy behind her restaurants, Chung listed the painful stereotypes of Chinese cuisine she’d heard growing up: “It’s cheap, it’s very oily, the restaurants aren’t clean.” So she’s paid close attention to details of decor and architecture, and frequently relies on organic products. Bao Express has an open kitchen so that her patrons can watch the chefs’ craft.

Khánh-Ly Huynh, who won the blockbuster televised cooking competition MasterChef France in 2015, has also grappled with limiting ideas of what Vietnamese food can and should be. I stopped by Nonette Bánh Mì & Donuts, Huynh’s lauded takeaway place, to try its eponymous goods. Her signature đặc biệt sandwich, with five types of meat, butter, and exquisite pickles prepared in-house, was magnificent: the most complex, nuanced bánh mì I’ve tasted during a lifetime’s single-minded pursuit of delicious versions. Nonette offers several kinds, including for vegetarians and vegans. “Bánh mì is a super-fluid theme in Vietnam,” she said, open to infinite variations.

“Everybody likes to put you in a category,” said Moko Hirayama, pastry chef and co-owner of the celebrated Mokonuts, an intimate restaurant with an inventive, highly seasonal menu that changes daily. In France she’s constantly being asked to define the restaurant: is it fusion, what’s its mould, what’s its speciality? “I don’t know what the speciality is,” she says. “We do food based on the ingredients that are available—fresh ingredients. What else can I say?”

The Best Asian Restaurants in Paris

For this trip, I visited Southeast- and East Asian-run restaurants, galleries, and shops. Here are a handful you can explore yourself.

There’s been a particular explosion of East and Southeast Asian-influenced restaurants. One with an especially devoted following is Mokonuts, a perennially packed little café with queues for its breakfast buns and changing seasonal lunch menus as well as snacks such as co-owner Moko Hirayama’s cult miso sesame cookies.

Bao Express

At Bao Express, serial restaurateurs Céline Chung and Billy Pham were inspired by the booths of 1970s Hong Kong diners for their plant-filled space, serving bao and popular dim sum.

Address: 10 Rue Bréguet, 75011 Paris, France

Maison by Sota Atsumi

At Maison by Sota Atsumi, the Tokyo-born chef guides diners through an inventive, provenance-driven tasting menu in a light-filled two-storey house with tiled walls. The airily modern Le Servan, described by Filipina owners and sisters Katia and Tatiana Levha as a French bistro with an Asian twist, is adored for textural, spicy dishes such as duck hearts with sweet chilli.

Address: 3 Rue Saint-Hubert, 75011 Paris, France

Folderol

At Folderol, married restaurateurs Jessica Yang and Robert Compagnon have made waves with their playful ice cream and wine pairings. Pierre Sang has five Korean French restaurants, but the open kitchen of the Oberkampf original is still a great place to see why he’s become such a big name in Parisian food.

Address: 10 Rue du Grand Prieuré, 75011 Paris, France

L’Abysse

Back in the more central 8th, the 12-seat sushi counter at L’Abysse is overseen by Yasunari Okazaki, who serves some of the finest morsels in Paris, with signatures such as a liquid-nitrogen-frozen shiso dessert.

Address: 8 Av. Dutuit, 75008 Paris, France

Oma

Over at Oma (“Mother”), in the plush Château des Fleurs hotel, chef Ji-Hye Park combines French traditions with Korean childhood recipes, including her signature rice with beef chunks, poached egg, seaweed, sesame and marinated radish.

Address: 19 Rue Vernet, 75008 Paris, France

Pho Tài

South of the Seine, the 13th is home to the largest populations from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and China. At much-loved Pho Tài, chef Te Ve Pin, who left Vietnam in 1968, does a delectably spicy, creamy beef pho, as well as splendid bò bún: noodles with tender beef.

Address: 13 Rue Philibert Lucot, 75013 Paris, France

Lao Lane Xang

The understated Lao Lane Xang serves superb dishes from Laos and its neighbours, including khao tod nam som, a pork salad to wrap in lettuce with coriander.

Address: 102 Av. d’Ivry, 75013 Paris, France

Signature Montmartre

Further out to the north, in-the-know Parisians have been beating a path to Signature Montmartre for sophisticated Korean-influenced French bistro dishes on a changing menu.

Address: 12 Rue des Trois Frères, 75018 Paris, France

Lao Siam

In Belleville, to the east, Lao Siam provides richly flavored plates inspired by the Laotian and Thai traditions of its founders.

Address: 49 Rue de Belleville, 75019 Paris, France