No clichés, no postcard views here, ladies and gentlemen. Only ghosts. The Captain leaning at the bar, a century-old coffee on the zinc counter, noting down guests' names and arrival times. And a circle of friends whose names, week after week, fill his Carnet. Faithful as a winning trifecta.
For the length of a coffee or a homemade steak-frites and mash, become a modern-day turfist. Take a table, scratch your luck, and let the music of Vincent, François, Paul… and the others run through your head!
Welcome to Le Cornichon.
At 2 rue des Goncourt, in the 11th arrondissement, the place presents itself as a "contemporary neighborhood café." Bertrand Chauveau and Paul Henri have been friends since childhood. When they began dreaming up their restaurant in 2023, they discovered a shared fascination for old-school neighborhood joints kept in their original state.
And they took the decor to its absolute limit. Together with the agency Claves, they studied French cafés as seen in the INA archives: green velvet booths, faux-leather and chrome, decorative molding, zinc, pinball, a postcard rack…
Behind this Parisian dive aesthetic, the cooking is far more refined than it looks. Bertrand Chauveau trained in the kitchens of Jean-François Piège and David Toutain before trading haute cuisine for the faux-leather booths of Le Cornichon. The decor says draft beer, fries, and scratch cards; the CV says Michelin stars.
FOOTNOTES
Film Vincent, François, Paul… and the others, Claude Sautet, 1974
Book In the Café of Lost Youth, Patrick Modiano, 2007
