Chef Alain Passard’s Arpège, which has held three Michelin stars since 1996, has switched to an almost entirely vegan menu.
After two vegan restaurants earned Michelin stars this year, a long-standing fixture on the food guide has become the latest to embrace plants.
Parisian eatery Arpège, a three-Michelin-star outpost by Chef Alain Passard, has eliminated meat, dairy, fish and eggs from its menu. The only animal product at the 39-year-old restaurant is honey sourced from its own beehives.
Arpège has long been noted for catering to vegan and vegetarian diets, but moving away from most animal products in a country whose culinary and gastronomic traditions are built on meat and dairy is a seismic shift.
It is the second three-star restaurant to go almost fully plant-based, after Eleven Madison Park famously did so in 2021. Like Arpège, Daniel Humm’s New York City establishment isn’t entirely vegan either, since its tea and coffee service offers honey and dairy milk.
New menu features tomato mosaic, flamed aubergine and more
Passard has been an advocate for more sustainable dining for decades – his restaurant hasn’t served red meat since 2001, when he said he would focus more on vegetables grown in his own gardens. This latest move, which has been a year in the making, builds on that.
“Everything I was able to do with the animal will remain a wonderful memory,” Passard told Reuters. “Today, I’m moving more towards a cuisine of emotion, a cuisine that I could describe as artistic. It’s closer to painting and sewing… Today, I’m a different chef.”
The chef said the switch to plant-forward dining was driven by his love for nature, and noted that using seasonal vegetables would reduce the eatery’s environmental impact.
While Passard made his name with roasted dishes like poulet au foin (chicken cooked in hay), he has since been a champion of vegetable-forward dining, which was spotlit on Netflix’s Chef’s Table: France.
That’s the ethos of the restaurant’s new menu too, which costs €420 ($485) for the full tasting set, and €260 ($300) for lunch. It features dishes like a ‘mosaic’ of tomatoes, mesclun praline with roasted almonds, melon carpaccio, flamed aubergine with melon confit, and a dish with carrots, onions, shallots and cabbage.
“There’s light in this cuisine. There are taste sensations that I’ve never experienced anywhere else,” the chef told AFP. “I still eat a little poultry and fish. But I’m more comfortable with plants. They allow me to learn.”
Michelin guide director embraces plant-based shift
Arpège’s shift to plants coincides with a fall in meat consumption in France, where per capita intake declined by 6% between 2003 and 2023. Retail sales of plant-based food, meanwhile, grew by 9% in 2024 to reach €537M, making it the third-largest market for these products in Europe.
Meat was a central topic at last year’s Olympic Games in Paris, which sought to make 60% of all meals served meat-free – although complaints about insufficient food and protein led the organisers to walk back on their promise. It highlighted the perception and preparation challenges that come with a switch away from animal proteins.
“It requires a lot more preparation, knowledge and research,” chef Claire Vallee told AFP. She earned a Michelin star for her vegan restaurant Ona in 2021, a first in France. The restaurant closed in 2022, with Vallee opening several pop-ups since. “It’s quite a colossal task.”
But the idea that vegan haute cuisine is implausible is changing quickly. Humm has been a vocal advocate of the shift, with Eleven Madison Park retaining its three stars the year after it got rid of meat. Asked whether he’s worried about losing his stars, Passard said he has “never thought about that”.
“We’re going to have to deliver. If we can maintain this level of quality, then I’m extremely confident,” he stated.
His decision was welcomed as a “positive approach” by Gwendal Poullennec, the international director of the Michelin guide. “We will continue to follow the evolution of Arpège, remaining faithful to our criteria,” he told AFP.
There are now seven (nearly 100%) vegan restaurants with Michelin stars. Two – Plates in London and Légume in Seoul – received their first star this year. They joined the likes of Eleven Madison Park (three stars), Dutch establishment De Nieuwe Winkel (two stars), Germany’s Seven Swans, Switzerland’s KLE (both one star). Arpège is the latest on this list.
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