Flavio Lucarini's Franco-Italian Star in the 16th
The Italian duo who took over from Matthias Marc are cooking with more precision than the neighbourhood deserves, and the €68 lunch is the smartest way in.
A quenelle of whipped potato arrives under a slick of runny cancoillotte, topped with trout eggs that pop against the warm cheese. This is the first bite at Substance, and it tells you what the next two hours will be: technical, salty-rich, unafraid of a strong flavour. Flavio Lucarini and Aurora Storari — the Italian chef-and-pastry-chef pair who took over after Matthias Marc's departure — cook Franco-Italian tasting menus with the kind of quiet exactness that made this room a Michelin star in 2022 and holds it there now.
The 16th is not where Paris goes for destination dining. That is what makes Substance worth the Métro ride. Groupe Eclore parked a serious kitchen on rue de Chaillot, a few blocks from the Trocadéro, and let it earn its way up. 50 Top Italy has it at #18 worldwide. Alexander Lobrano gave it an A-minus. The dining room is not full of food writers; it is full of the neighbourhood, which is the highest compliment a serious restaurant can receive in Paris.
The cooking at Substance is more precise than the 16th arrondissement usually asks for, and the €68 lunch is a genuine bargain in the city.
Editorial Deep
The menus stretch from a €68 lunch Market to a nine-course €188 tasting called Substance, with a €138 vegetarian and a €98 Essentiel in between. À la carte runs €42–€68 per plate. The kitchen is Franco-Italian in the direct sense — Italian technique and Italian pasta on French produce, no fusion theatrics. Squid ink gnocchi arrives with a smoked egg-yolk condiment: dark, dense, salted deep, the kind of starter Lobrano was right to single out. The palate cleanser is a sharp-creamy lemon tart plated as a paw print, which sounds silly and eats seriously.
The tables are mostly locals: 16th-arrondissement couples in their fifties and sixties, a business lunch or two at midday, the occasional younger pair who have clearly saved for it. Nobody is dressed up but nobody is casual either — this is the neighbourhood where a good blazer is the default and the room reflects that.
The greeting is warm without being performative — coats taken, table found, a first pour of water and a menu explanation that treats you as someone who has come to eat rather than someone who needs convincing. Service across the meal is genuinely knowledgeable: the pass is described accurately, the wine list is walked without upsell, pacing across a nine-course menu holds without a lull. The sommelier is the reason to spend on wine here — the champagne list in particular is deep, and a good bottle uncorked at this room is money well placed.
Skip the à la carte. At €42–€68 per dish, three plates and a dessert lands you at the price of the Vibration tasting menu without the arc the kitchen is built to deliver. The menus are how this cooking is designed to be eaten; the carte is the option for someone who wants to eat here without committing to the format, and the format is the product.
Come back for the truffle window in late autumn or the white asparagus in April — the menus rotate around what the market gives Lucarini, and the shifts are real enough that a return three months later reads as a different meal. A second visit is the moment to go long on the nine-course Substance menu with the sommelier's pairing, having done the €68 Market at lunch the first time to see whether the room fits.
What to eat
Don't miss.
Squid ink gnocchi with smoked egg-yolk condiment; Sao Tome chocolate soufflé for two
“A precise Franco-Italian kitchen, starred since 2022, hiding in the 16th, best entered at the €68 Market lunch.”
Go for Lucarini and Storari's tasting menus and the sommelier's champagne list. Skip if the room matters as much as the plate — Plénitude does that job, for a materially bigger spend.
The Verdict
