Taillevent hands its kitchen to Philip Chronopoulos

Philip Chronopoulos took charge of the kitchen at Taillevent on rue Lamennais at the start of September, succeeding Giuliano Sperandio after five years.

Sperandio announced his departure this summer and is heading to a new project in South America, according to Gault&Millau. He arrived at the house in 2021 and spent his tenure loosening a dining room founded in 1946 without breaking it, which is the only job description that has ever applied here.

Chronopoulos comes with a specific record. He ran the Restaurant du Palais Royal from 2015 to 2025 and became the first Greek chef to hold two Michelin stars in Paris. Before that he worked in Joel Robuchon's kitchens and at Arpege, which is roughly the two poles of French cooking placed end to end.

Institutions that hire technicians sometimes get technique and nothing else.

What Taillevent is actually buying

Continuity with a different accent. Taillevent has two stars to defend and a clientele that measures a new chef by whether the room still feels like itself in November. A cook trained in Robuchon precision and Passard vegetables is unlikely to arrive with a manifesto, which is exactly the point.

The risk runs the other way. Institutions that hire technicians sometimes get technique and nothing else; the reason Sperandio mattered was that he moved the house without announcing it. Chronopoulos has ten years of running his own room to draw on, not just a decade of stages.

Paris keeps rearranging its kitchens

The month has been busy. Aldehyde reopened on 8 September under its three sous-chefs after Youssef Marzouk left, going back to French cooking. Jean Imbert left the Plaza Athenee in April and the dining room was renamed La Grande Table du Plaza Athenee. Matthias Marc has closed his Paris chapter and reopened in the Jura.

Taillevent is the oldest name in that list and the least likely to be rebuilt. Eighty years in, the house changes chefs roughly once a decade and expects the guest to notice nothing. The first real test is the winter menu. Anne-Sophie Pic's move into the Fondation Cartier is the other Paris opening to watch this month.