Steeped in tradition while elevated with a modern-day consciousness, Le Bon Georges represents the new pinnacle of the classic French bistro. The casual restaurant is the result of owner Benoît Duval-Arnould’s passion to source the highest-quality ingredients from artisanal French purveyors, pair them with a great wine list and serve them amid the theater of a bustling seven-days-per-week, lunch-and-dinner schedule.
Located in Paris’ 9th arrondissement, Le Bon Georges opened in 2014, taking over the space of a former pizza parlor. It features a cozy 50-seat dining room split over two levels, its walls adorned with classic posters, large mirrors and chalkboard menus. An additional 44 seats are offered on the sidewalk out front, while a small chef’s table in a back room affords an up-close view of the working kitchen. The hum of the place during service makes every seat a great perch for convivial dining and people watching.
The success of Le Bon Georges is interesting in part because it isn’t the latest project born of a long career by a seasoned hospitality veteran. Instead, it’s Duval-Arnould’s first ever foray into restaurants.
“For me to open a restaurant has always been a dream,” says Duval-Arnould, 47. “When I was a boy, I wanted to become a farmer, but I didn’t have the connections or money. I was raised and educated by my grandmother. She was a fantastic woman who taught me a few things. She taught me how to eat. She taught me how to select products. She was also tough with me, telling me that you had to always work hard.”
After earning an engineering degree, Duval-Arnould put his work ethic into a run of jobs that had a food bent, but in a different manner. He worked for a large canned soup company before starting his own food distribution business as well as owning supermarkets in Paris. The scale and impersonal nature of his work left him yearning for his childhood dream.
“I didn’t like what I was selling and doing,” he says. “I was just selling food from the agro-industry. But I realized that I had to do what I didn’t want to do in order to learn what I wanted to do. From my childhood I had always felt a connection with farmers in our region. I love what they produce and what they do. So I started Le Bon Georges without knowing anything about the restaurant business and without any connections. I believe so much in wanting to connect the best of French products with our guests, and I knew I wanted to offer the largest wine list I could.”
The restaurant started modestly as Duval-Arnould built up his network, traveling to the countryside to meet directly with farmers and fishers. Those relationships have paid off. Today Le Bon Georges is known for its top-quality ingredients, including beef sourced from sixth-generation butcher Alexandre Polmard, who raises Blonde d’Aquitaine cattle; free-range chickens from Ferme de Chez Tauzin; dayboat fish from Oh! Matelot; and vegetables from Valdemar Barreira. The produce and sustainably farmed fish arrive daily, with the menu pivoting based on what comes in.
Handling all this is chef Loïc Lobet, 47, who joined the team two years after Le Bon Georges opened. Lobet had initially come in for dinner, during which he struck up a conversation with Duval-Arnould. Finding themselves sympatico in their approach to using only well-sourced, top-quality ingredients, Lobet accepted an offer to come on board.
Lobet’s cooking doesn’t reinvent the wheel; the menu here is Gallic to its core. Dishes such as pâté en croute or Quercy lamb with roasted new potatoes are staples. Lobet’s cooking is precise, pure and focused. That not only serves to highlight the dishes but also provides a perfect foil for the wine list.
The tender and mineral-inflected flavor of the Blonde d’Aquitaine beef provides an ideal match for any of the hundreds of red wines that highlight the 2,000-selection wine list. Or, go with the monkish and curried cauliflower and a floral-accented Chenin Blanc from the Loire.
Burgundy is the linchpin of the cellar here, but all of France is represented, with prominent listings from the Rhône Valley, Languedoc, Loire, Champagne and Bordeaux along with a small but growing international selection.
“Burgundy is very important, and I love Pinot Noir,” says wine director Frédéric Sénéchal, 48. “But we want to grow all the other parts of the list, too, especially Italy, the United States and even Japan.”
Sénéchal was out of work following the pandemic in 2020. In his tasting group, he met a friend of Duval-Arnould who suggested he consider joining Le Bon Georges. After a long career as a sommelier in Michelin-starred restaurants, including for Gordon Ramsay, Sénéchal was initially skeptical of working in a bistro but was soon swayed by Duval-Arnould’s vision. Today he spends his time running the team of up to nine sommeliers, who staff the floor every day, while also touring French wine regions to meet and taste with producers in person, cultivating relationships with them just as Duval-Arnould has done with the restaurant’s food suppliers.
“We can’t develop and sustain such a wine list without that level of personal connection,” says Sénéchal, who manages an inventory of 50,000 bottles that includes a growing percentage of wines being aged before they are placed on the list.
As the service team bustles about, they never miss their timing to present a bottle, and the kitchen paces the food leisurely. The combination of food, wine and service theater makes Le Bon Georges an ideal place to sit down for a couple of hours and enjoy life deliberately, with a bottle (or two) of wine.
“Two times a day, every day, it’s a big show,” says Duval-Arnould. “We are honored by our guests, and we try to stay humble. I am aware that everything can stop tomorrow, so I question myself every day in what we do, and then get ready for the next service. Because I want Le Bon Georges to become one of the best places in France to enjoy wine and food.”
Perhaps Duval-Arnould is too busy to notice that Le Bon Georges already is exactly that.
Le Bon Georges
Address: 45 Rue Saint Georges, Paris
Telephone: (33) 4878-4030
Website: lebongeorges.paris
