de_DEHakuba is the Japanese restaurant of Cheval Blanc Paris, the LVMH luxury hotel overlooking the Seine at 8 Quai du Louvre, a short walk from the Louvre itself. Opened in March 2024, it was conceived as a collaboration between the house’s celebrated chef Arnaud Donckele and pastry chef Maxime Frédéric, with chef Takuya Watanabe leading the kitchen day to day. Within just two years it earned two Michelin stars, joining Donckele’s three-starred Plénitude and the one-starred Tout-Paris under the same roof, making Cheval Blanc one of the most decorated dining addresses in the city.
The cuisine is described as kaiseki-sushi, a dialogue in which Japanese culinary tradition meets the treasures of the French and Atlantic coasts. Dishes centre on seafood — sea bream, squid, bluefin tuna, sea urchin — worked both raw and cooked and framed by broths, dashi, sake and tea, marrying Japanese ritual and seasonality with French coastal produce. The progression is measured and precise, each course a small study in restraint and balance rather than spectacle, and the sourcing leans on the same exacting supplier relationships that define the rest of the hotel’s kitchens.
The room is a contemporary reading of Japanese tradition, with dark woods such as black walnut, a tsukubai stone and bamboo water feature, and staff in linen garments tied at the waist. Guests are offered an immersive dinner journey, the “Yume” menu, served on evenings from Tuesday to Saturday to only a handful of tables. The overall experience is presented as an initiation into a ritualised Japan — a celebration of nature and the seasons transposed to the banks of the Seine, and one of the most quietly ambitious new tables to open in Paris in recent years.