de_DELe Cinq is the flagship restaurant of the Four Seasons Hôtel George V, set just off the Champs-Élysées in the heart of Paris’s Golden Triangle in the 8th arrondissement. It reopened in December 1999 after the landmark hotel — acquired in 1996 by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and comprehensively restored — returned to the summit of Parisian luxury, and it quickly took its place among the city’s grandes tables. The dining room is among the most opulent in Paris: a Louis XVI-inspired, Grand-Siècle setting of gilded panelling, crystal chandeliers and towering floral arrangements that critics have likened to dining inside a grand French château.
Its kitchen has passed through a lineage of celebrated chefs. Philippe Legendre, who had spent a decade at the three-star Taillevent, ran the pass from the 1999 reopening until 2008; Éric Briffard followed from 2008 to 2014; and since October 2014 the restaurant has been led by Christian Le Squer, a Breton chef who had already earned three Michelin stars at Pavillon Ledoyen before crossing the city to the George V. In 2017 Le Squer was voted Chef of the Year by his peers, confirming his standing among the great names of French gastronomy.
The restaurant’s Michelin history mirrors that pedigree. It won its first star in 2000 and a second in 2001, rose to three stars from 2003, lost the third in 2007, and — under Le Squer — regained the full three-star rating in 2016, a distinction it continues to hold today. His cooking is classic French haute cuisine reworked with precision and restraint: built on the finest luxury produce, defined by clarity of flavour and a quiet mastery of technique rather than showmanship.
Dining at Le Cinq is a complete grande-maison experience — formal, impeccably choreographed table service, an encyclopaedic wine list drawn from the George V’s cellars, and pâtisserie to match the savoury kitchen. For visitors to Paris it remains one of the definitive addresses for haute cuisine at the highest level, a room and a kitchen that together embody the traditional grand Parisian dining room. Reservations are typically required well in advance.