We’ve rated FIEF as GREAT with three stars * * *
You can find all our rankings in the Restaurant Index
FIEF was one of the first fancy restaurants I visited in Paris after the border reopened in the summer of 2021. Parisians were feeling giddy, having only recently been released from their evening curfew. There were so few international travelers that one could just walk directly into Shakespeare and Company (below) or the Louvre.
My memory of this period is rose-colored. I recall perfect weather and people literally dancing in the streets. But I also remember that restaurants were struggling.
Like really struggling. Almost everyone was understaffed. There was a general exodus from this difficult line of work, and there were also temporary absences - so many of them - from people continuing to get COVID. Ingredient deliveries were unreliable for similar reasons. And not enough customers felt brave / reckless enough to eat indoors. It was rough going for restaurateurs, and not very profitable.
As a result, and completely understandably, a lot of meals were pretty bad. And nobody (also understandably) was saying a negative word. Many restaurants that I visited during this period suffered from my initial impression being tainted by their “post-COVID performance,” even if I never shared those negative feelings.
Chef Victor Mercier was a finalist on Top Chef in 2018 and (poor guy) opened FIEF in the fall of 2019. FIEF was only open for half a year before you-know-what happened, and they had barely reopened by the time I tested them years later. In 2021, they felt like (and were) an inexperienced restaurant.
In the case of FIEF, I didn’t have a bad dinner, but it fell short of being great. Did our readers want to risk an ambitious and expensive indoor experience if it wasn’t great? I declined to write about FIEF at the time and to sing instead about casual restaurants who were delivering on their more modest ambitions.
But that was then. Restaurants, in the intervening years, have (largely) recovered, and I’ve (largely) moved past my guilt about critiquing them. So I’ve started returning to restaurants that I may have ignored, or given a pass, during the reopening phase.
FIEF, I’m delighted to say, is now an incredible restaurant, and I’ve included it among our fifty favorites (get that list here).
Its hard-to-pronounce name stems from an admirable mission to highlight local ingredients. FIEF stands for Fait Ici En France (Made Here in France).
My second visit, three years after the first one, allowed me to experience one two of the most interesting and well-paced tasting menus that I’ve had recently - one version for “conscious omnivores” (95€) and the other for vegans (85€).
Both tasting menus started with this first course of artichoke and cherry, bitter almond and meadowsweet. It may look delicate and frilly, but it packed a concentrated punch.
The vegan menu then continued with an utterly delicious mushroom dumpling with shitake XO sauce (above), and I dug into the almost-too-pretty-to-eat tartare below. A tangle of raw squid topped a base of grass-fed beef, and both were bathed in a sauce inspired by Pad Thai but made with local ingredients.
By the way, it’s possible to sit at the chef’s counter and order a tasting menu that includes every single dish for 165€. That’s a good move if you want to try everything and don’t have a vegan friend who will let you eat off her plates.
And you’ll want to, because the vegan dishes are crazy good. I loved this congee with Camargue rice, grilled asparagus jus, Breton algae and basil (above).
Then again, my dish of turbot with shrimp and fava beans was pretty seductive. She wore marigold flowers in her hair, and her perfect flesh was nearly translucent.
Our two menus reunited for a savory pre-dessert of lemon with black Nyons olives and confit fennel.
The vegan menu then concluded with strawberries and peas with tarragon and baie de Maceron (a black pepper-mimicking spice from Ile de Ré). The peas were blessedly subtle and dominated by perfect fraises.
I, the cream-eater, finished happily with a rhubarb blanc manger with pine and goat cheese sorbet. The resinous pine was outstanding with the rhubarb. I’ll be thinking about this dessert for a long time.
The bread and butter, by the way, were also really good.
So here’s what I love about FIEF:
Service is excellent, as befits a restaurant with one Michelin star.
There’s no sense of sacrifice from eating locally. France produces some of the best base ingredients in the world, and Mercier is making great use of them.
It’s the best vegan / vegetarian tasting menu I’ve ever had (85€).
The omnivore version is also outstanding, especially for the price (95€).
It’s pretty easy to get in.
If you’re looking for a tasting menu that will delight a food-loving vegan or vegetarian, this is the city’s best option right now. But I’d also return to FIEF with an omnivorous friend - anyone who loves seasonal, local and vegetable-forward cuisine. That should be all of us.
FIEF
44 Rue de la Folie Méricourt, 75011
Open Monday-Friday for dinner only
Closed Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 1 47 00 03 22
modern & creative
tasting menus
good for special occasions
open Monday
hard to book at the chef’s counter
good for vegetarians
excellent wine pairings
STILL SEARCHING?
Our restaurant index organizes the restaurants we’ve anonymously visited since 2021 by location and ranks them all as:
GREAT * * *
GOOD * *
FINE *
NOT RECOMMENDED
The wine and cocktails pairing with the dinner courses are also outstanding.
I'm a former restaurant critic, "I Eat, Therefore I Am, A Guide to Restaurants in Ann Arbor".
I always felt my sole responsibility was to my readers. Even if I knew and liked the owners of the restaurant, I felt duty bound to be open and honest with those who put their trust in my opinions. It is not professional, under any circumstances, to keep an honest experience from your audience. If you have a bad experience, go there again and see if it happens again. (Actually, one should always dine at least twice at an establishment before writing a review so as to be fair.) If a restaurant critic isn't fully transparent, that critic can't be trusted by their audience.