Le Grand Véfour, restaurant at the Palais-Royal since 1784

Le Grand Véfour, the restaurant in the Palais-Royal gardens on rue de Beaujolais, opened in 1784 as the Café de Chartres. Antoine Aubertot set it up beneath the arcades, and it soon became a smart and fashionable café.

During the Revolution, Danton and Marat were among its customers. In 1820 Jean Véfour turned it into a lavish restaurant that took his name. For nearly a century it drew Bonaparte and Joséphine, Balzac, Lamartine, George Sand and Victor Hugo, faithful to his vermicelli and lamb.

Raymond Oliver took over in 1948 and won three Michelin stars in 1953. Jean Cocteau designed his menu; Colette, who lived upstairs, Sartre and Beauvoir kept their tables. The early nineteenth-century décor of gilded mirrors and painted panels was listed as a historic monument in 1983. Guy Martin ran the kitchen from 1991 and bought the house in 2011.

Since December 2025 the house has belonged to Paris Society, with Bruno Doucet, formerly of La Régalade, in the kitchen. In spring 2026 a terrace of one hundred and fifty seats opened under the arcades and in the garden. Five tables keep their original places, among them those of Napoleon, Victor Hugo and Colette.