Best Japanese Restaurants in Paris 2026 — Eight That Earn It
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"There are three sushi chefs in Paris and twelve sushi-shaped restaurants." The line is from a Tokyo-trained sommelier we know in the 7th, and it is closer to true than not. The three are Sushi B, Jin, and Aida — and the wider Japanese list is led by Restaurant ES, Takayuki Honjo's one-star modern Japanese-French room in the 7th. Runners-up: Pages, Yen, Kinugawa Vendôme.
Paris does not have an omakase scene the way Tokyo or New York does — three of the city's best Japanese chefs cook for between eight and fourteen guests a night, total. That is the entire serious top tier. The eight rooms below either belong to that tier or earn the wider Japanese list by cooking something Japanese chefs in Paris are uniquely positioned to do, like Restaurant ES's France-Japan crossover.
Takayuki Honjo opened Restaurant ES on rue de Babylone in 2013 and won his first Michelin star in 2014, then a second in 2016 — and currently holds one (he relinquished the second voluntarily in 2018). The three single-chef sushi rooms — Sushi B (Masayasu Yonemura, 2014), Jin (Takuya Watanabe, 2007), Aida (Koji Aida, 2010) — represent the serious omakase tier and together seat 36 people a night. Pages in the 16th (Teshi Mizukami, one Michelin star) and Yen on rue Saint-Benoît (Daisuke Ueoka, soba specialist since 1997) are the two other rooms that justify the booking. Kinugawa Vendôme is the only acceptable upscale-group Japanese in central Paris. Anything below those eight is Japanese-by-decoration rather than Japanese by training.
Eight Japanese Rooms in Paris Worth Booking
Takayuki Honjo trained at Astrance under Pascal Barbot from 2008 to 2012, opened Restaurant ES on rue de Babylone in 2013, and won his first Michelin star in 2014 — the fastest Japanese-chef star in Paris history. He won a second in 2016, then voluntarily returned it in 2018 to take the kitchen back from a brigade to a four-cook setup. He currently holds one star and has refused interviews about a possible re-promotion. The 24-seat dining room sits in a 1920s building two blocks from Le Bon Marché.
The cooking is genuinely France-Japan crossover rather than fusion. Foie gras served with bonito katsuobushi shavings and a dashi consommé at the €198 dinner tasting is the signature dish; the turbot with shio koji marinade and a French beurre blanc is the other. The kombu cure on the turbot is a 24-hour Hokkaido-method kelp wrap, the beurre blanc is finished with Brittany shallot — and the two techniques meet on the plate in a way that does not feel forced. The wine list runs to 600 bins under sommelier Hidemi Suzuki, weighted Loire and Burgundy.
Reservations open 90 days out via Tock and the dinner tasting slots Wednesday through Saturday sell out in the first 48 hours. Lunch at €78 is the rare value play at one-Michelin-star tier in Paris — the same three pasta-of-the-day style courses, smaller portions, identical kitchen.
VerdictTakayuki Honjo's France-Japan crossover at one Michelin star, the foie gras with katsuobushi is unique to Paris — book it eight weeks ahead, worth the booking.
Sushi B occupies a narrow ground-floor room on rue Rameau behind the Bibliothèque Nationale in the 1st — eight counter seats facing a single hinoki cypress counter, two seatings a night, no a la carte. Masayasu Yonemura trained at Sushi Saito in Tokyo (three Michelin stars in the Tokyo guide) from 1998 to 2007, then moved to Paris to open Sushi B in 2014 under the patronage of the Mori family. He won his Michelin star in 2018 and has retained it through the 2025 guide.
The omakase at dinner runs €280 and is the only one of the three serious sushi counters in Paris that sources red tuna chu-toro from Cadiz rather than the Mediterranean coastal fishery — the Cadiz almadraba (the May trap-net catch) is closer to Tsukiji-grade than anything else available in continental Europe. The kombu-cured red snapper is the test dish; the sweet shrimp from the French Mediterranean port of Sète is served warm. The shari (rice) is the giveaway — vinegared at room temperature, not chilled, and the temperature contrast with the cold neta (fish) is the signature of a Saito-trained chef.
Reservations open 60 days out via the Sushi B website. The first seating at 6.30pm sells out faster than the second at 8.45pm — Tokyo collectors and Paris-based Japanese expat clientele dominate the first sitting. Cash and card both accepted; service is 10% added discreetly.
VerdictEight counter seats, Saito-lineage edomae nigiri, the Cadiz chu-toro is the dish that no other Paris room serves — reserve weeks ahead for a milestone evening.
Jin opened on rue de la Sourdière in the 1st in 2007 — the first serious edomae sushi counter in Paris and the first to win a Michelin star (in 2014, retained through 2025). Takuya Watanabe trained at Hashimoto in Tokyo (two stars in the 2010 Tokyo guide) from 1996 to 2006 and brought the Edo-style cure techniques across when he opened. The counter seats ten and the room behind it has eight more covers — fourteen total per seating, two seatings.
Watanabe is the only sushi chef in Paris who cures gizzard shad (kohada) for three days before serving — most edomae chefs cure for under 24 hours, and the three-day method is the Hashimoto-lineage signature. The kuruma ebi (Japanese prawn, briefly poached then served at body temperature) is the second test dish. The Hokkaido bafun uni is air-flown weekly. The Setouchi conger eel (anago) served with a sweet kabayaki glaze is the dish to close on.
The wine and sake list runs to 220 bins, with a Champagne pairing option at €98 supplementary. Reservations open 60 days out via the website. The lunch omakase at €148 (weekdays only, 12 seats per sitting) is the easier reservation by a factor of three; the dinner sitting books in the first week of release.
VerdictThree-day cured kohada, fourteen seats, Hashimoto lineage — book Jin's weekday lunch for a serious first date you do not want to share with twelve other guests.
Koji Aida opened the 16-seat room on rue Pierre Leroux in the 7th in 2010 with a brief that almost no other Paris restaurant attempts seriously: Japanese teppanyaki cooked at the Kobe-trained standard, with Wagyu sourced from a single Hyōgo prefecture cooperative rather than via the broader European import chain. He won his Michelin star in 2011 and has retained it through every subsequent guide. The room is one counter with two teppan stations, Aida himself at the right counter, his sous-chef at the left.
The €228 tasting is the only menu at dinner. The headline course is the Wagyu A5 ribcap with shaved Périgord black truffle (winter only) — the cooking is on the lower-heat end of Kobe-school teppan, the truffle is the French addition, and the combination is unique to Aida in Paris. The abalone with its own liver sauce (a Japanese sashimi technique adapted to teppan) is the dish to plan around. The rice course is finished with the dashi the cook has been building all evening.
Reservations open 60 days out by phone — the website booking has not worked since 2023 and the staff prefer phone calls between 11am and 3pm Tuesday through Saturday. The 6.30pm first seating opens up most weeks; the 9pm second is the harder one.
VerdictThe only Michelin-starred teppanyaki in Paris since 2011, Wagyu A5 with Périgord black truffle — worth the booking for a winter anniversary.
Pages opened in 2014 on rue Auguste-Vacquerie in the 16th — three blocks from the Arc de Triomphe — and won its Michelin star in 2017. Teshi Mizukami's training is unusual for a Japanese-Paris chef: he worked at Hertog Jan in Bruges under Gert De Mangeleer from 2008 to 2014 (three Michelin stars at closure in 2018), and the cooking shows the Flemish-Japanese hybrid rather than the more usual French-Japanese register.
The signature is the beef tartare with Japanese tsukemono pickles, shiso oil, and a hot dashi poured over at the table — the dish has been on the menu since 2014 and is the only one that has not been rotated. The turbot with miso-butter and a Belgian-style shrimp croquette is the other test dish. The lunch tasting at €98 includes both signatures in smaller portions and is the most under-booked Michelin-starred lunch in Paris.
The 16th arrondissement location keeps the room quieter than the 7th or 8th Michelin rooms — Pages is two minutes from the Champs-Élysées by car but functionally hidden. Reservations open 60 days out via the website. The wine list is 380 bins under sommelier Marie Tremblay, leaning Alsace and Loire.
VerdictThe Flemish-Japanese register at one Michelin star, dashi-poured tartare since 2014, the under-booked €98 lunch — try it once for a Wednesday business lunch.
Yen opened on rue Saint-Benoît in 1997 — by twenty-eight years the oldest serious Japanese restaurant on the Left Bank — and Daisuke Ueoka still cooks the soba program himself at the front counter. The cooking is soba-led rather than sushi-led, which makes Yen the only serious option in Paris for diners who want the buckwheat-noodle register rather than the raw-fish register.
The Tenseiro hand-cut soba at €32 is the order — buckwheat ground in the back of the kitchen daily, the noodles cut to order, served cold with a tsuyu dipping broth made from kombu, bonito and shoyu. The sobazushi (soba-noodle sushi rolls) at €28 is the unique dish on the menu — soba noodles rolled in nori with cucumber and pickle. The seasonal tempura plate at €45 is the other order. The €120 tasting includes all three.
Reservations open 21 days out via the website. The ground floor is small (28 seats); the first-floor dining room above seats 40 and is the quieter sitting. Lunch from 12pm to 2pm is the easier window; dinner books out Friday and Saturday a week ahead.
VerdictTwenty-eight years of hand-ground soba on rue Saint-Benoît, the sobazushi is the only one in Paris — pencil it in for a solo Tuesday lunch.
Kinugawa Vendôme opened in 1981 in a 19th-century building two blocks from Place Vendôme — Toshiro Kuroda's original restaurant, now under chef Toyofumi Ozuru since 2018. The room is the largest serious Japanese in central Paris at 95 covers across two floors, which makes it the only credible Japanese option for groups of eight or more. The brief is upscale-but-not-omakase: a a la carte menu of sashimi, tempura, robata grill and a serious set of mains for an after-work corporate dinner.
The black cod with miso (yu-an yaki) at €52 has been on the menu since 1981 and is the dish to order — the cod is marinated 48 hours in white miso, sake and mirin, then grilled at high heat, finished under a salamander. The chu-toro tataki with truffle ponzu at €68 is the other order. Skip the tempura — the kitchen does competent rather than serious tempura, and the value is better at Yen two blocks south.
Reservations open 30 days out on the website. Lunch from 12pm to 2.30pm is the easier window; the 8.30pm sitting after work is the busiest. Dress code is smart business; the room handles groups well and the noise level stays at conversation.
VerdictThe Place Vendôme upscale-Japanese for groups of eight, miso black cod since 1981 — reserve four weeks out for a corporate dinner.
Restaurant Hokkaido opened on rue de Sentier in the 2nd in 2019 — Yusuke Aoki spent six years as sous chef at Aida before opening his own room with a deliberately narrow brief: only ingredients sourced from Hokkaido. Scallops, sea urchin, salmon roe, kombu, snow crab in season — all flown weekly from the Sapporo Central Fish Market, no Mediterranean or Brittany seafood, no European Wagyu substitutes.
The Hokkaido scallop carpaccio with yuzu kosho at €34 is the signature antipasto — the scallops are bafun uni grade, sliced thin and dressed with house-fermented yuzu kosho. The A5 wagyu sukiyaki for two at €148 is the headline main — Hokkaido-sourced beef rather than the more common Kobe or Miyazaki, cooked at the table in a soy-mirin-sake broth. The snow crab from November through February is the seasonal special; book ahead for it.
The room seats 36 across the ground floor with a six-seat counter at the back. Reservations open 30 days out via Tock. The wine and sake list is the under-the-radar strength — 80 sakes, 220 wines, with an eight-glass sake pairing at €68.
VerdictThe only Hokkaido-only Paris kitchen, snow crab in winter, scallop with yuzu kosho — pencil it in for a January dinner when the snow crab lands.
Who This Guide Isn't For
Skip the rue Sainte-Anne sushi strip for a serious omakase. The cluster of Japanese restaurants north of the Palais-Royal between rue Sainte-Anne and rue de Richelieu has been the Paris-Japanese-expat lunch zone since the 1980s — and it is the right area for a €15 udon or a quick chirashi at lunch. None of those rooms operate at the standard of Sushi B, Jin or Aida, and the bar is honest about it. If you are looking for €25 ramen on rue Sainte-Anne, the right list is the Paris ramen roundup, not this one.
Skip Restaurant ES for a group of six or more. The room seats 24 across two narrow rows, the tasting menu is paced for the kitchen, and a six-top will be split across two tables that face each other across the room. Kinugawa Vendôme or Restaurant Hokkaido are the right calls for groups; ES is built for tables of two.
Skip Aida if you do not eat beef. The teppanyaki kitchen is built around the Wagyu and the abalone — the vegetarian set menu offered on request is competent but the room is calibrated for the meat course. Pages or Restaurant ES are the better Michelin-tier calls for non-meat-eaters.
How to Pick the Right Room for Your Evening
Sushi B for the Cadiz chu-toro, Jin for the three-day cured kohada. Both are eight to fourteen seats with two seatings a night; book sixty days out on the dot.
Restaurant ES for the France-Japan crossover, Aida for the teppanyaki, Pages for the Flemish-Japanese register. All three hold one Michelin star and all three book sixty days out.
Kinugawa Vendôme is the only option that handles eight to twelve comfortably. Restaurant Hokkaido handles six.
Yen for the soba, Pages for the €98 lunch tasting, Sushi B for the €198 lunch omakase. All three are walkable from the Tuileries.
Restaurant ES, Sushi B, Jin and Aida open 60 days out — three of the four sell out the prime slots in 48 hours. Pages opens 60 days out via the website. Yen 21 days. Kinugawa Vendôme 30 days. Restaurant Hokkaido 30 days via Tock.