Le Grand Véfour, Gastronomic restaurant in Palais Royal, Paris, France

Le Grand Véfour occupies the Beaujolais gallery of the Palais-Royal gardens. The ground-floor dining room has near-black panelled walls and a low ceiling divided into compartments painted with faded blue, green and gold arabesques; tall dark-framed windows look onto pale stone columns and arches, with deep red banquettes beneath them. Brass chandeliers hang over white-clothed tables and dark wooden chairs.

Antoine Aubertot opened the Café de Chartres in the Palais-Royal arcades in 1784; Danton, Marat and the duc d'Orléans were early customers. In 1820 Jean Véfour turned the café into a restaurant, and within three years he sold it to Jean Boissier and retired. Closed from 1905, it reopened in autumn 1948 under Raymond Oliver, who held three Michelin stars from 1953 for thirty years.

The dining room's painted ceilings and panelled walls are listed as historical monuments since 9 December 1983, together with the entrance and the two ground-floor rooms. Jean Cocteau designed a menu for the house, and Colette, Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were regulars. Since December 2025 the kitchens are run by Bruno Doucet, and the menu has moved from haute gastronomie to upscale brasserie dishes.

The dining room is reached through the Galerie de Beaujolais in the Palais-Royal garden, in the 1st arrondissement; the entrance and painted ground-floor rooms are listed as monuments historiques. Since spring 2021 there has also been a terrace of about 60 seats in the adjoining gallery and 40 in part of the garden. The menu moved from haute gastronomie to upscale brasserie dishes.

The dining room's painted ceilings and entrance were inscribed as monuments historiques on 9 December 1983, the same year a bomb attack wounded about ten people, among them Maurice and Françoise Rudetzki, who then founded the association SOS Attentats. Sauce Mornay was among the preparations introduced here.