Monsieur Paul

Monsieur Paul is a signature table-service restaurant in the France Pavilion of World Showcase at EPCOT in Walt Disney World. It occupies the intimate upstairs dining room above Chefs de France, the pavilion's ground-floor brasserie, and serves classic French haute cuisine as a prix fixe gastronomic meal. The restaurant is a tribute to chef Paul Bocuse, one of the most influential French chefs of the twentieth century, and is run by the Bocuse family business headed by his son, Jérôme Bocuse.

Advertising

SupaParkFounding advertisersupapark.com

History

The upstairs room was part of the France pavilion from EPCOT's opening era. From 1982 it operated as Bistro de Paris, the quieter, more formal companion to Chefs de France below. Both restaurants grew out of the work of three celebrated French chefs — Paul Bocuse, Roger Vergé and Gaston Lenôtre — who together established the pavilion's dining when EPCOT opened, with Bocuse's Les Chefs de France becoming the first Bocuse-affiliated restaurant in America.

Bistro de Paris closed in 2012 for refurbishment and reopened in December 2012 under a new name: Monsieur Paul, the form of address by which the young Paul Bocuse had been known in kitchens in the 1950s, to distinguish him from his father Georges, also a chef. The relaunch kept the room upscale but deliberately softened its formality — servers no longer wore tuxedos and table linens were removed — while the menu leaned directly on the Bocuse heritage, including dishes from Paul Bocuse, the family's restaurant at Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or near Lyon, most famously the black truffle soup created in 1975 for President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

Paul Bocuse died in 2018. His son Jérôme, who had already taken over the family's EPCOT operation, continued to run the pavilion's restaurants under his company, JBI.

Monsieur Paul closed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and, like Takumi-Tei, was among the last signature restaurants at Walt Disney World to return. It reopened on 18 October 2022 with a new concept and no à la carte menu.

Setting

The restaurant is reached through an unassuming entrance and a staircase from the pavilion street, a separation that keeps the upstairs room feeling removed from the crowds in World Showcase. Inside, the dining room is small and calm by EPCOT standards, decorated with photographs and references to the Bocuse family and its restaurant in France, and with windows looking out over the pavilion rooftops and the promenade. In keeping with its format, Monsieur Paul admits only guests aged ten and over, and serves dinner only.

Cuisine

In its first decade Monsieur Paul offered a choice between an à la carte menu of classic Bocuse dishes prepared with American ingredients, and a multi-course prix fixe. The 2022 reopening replaced that choice with a single format: a prix fixe presented as "the gastronomic meal of the French", the traditional celebratory meal structure that UNESCO inscribed on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.

Following that structure, the meal begins with an apéritif and an amuse-bouche, then proceeds through a starter, a fish course, a meat course, a cheese course and dessert, ending with liqueurs, with choices offered within the fish and meat courses. Dishes in the reopened format have included Maine lobster salad, escargots, saffron mussel soup, seared scallops, snapper, rack of lamb, beef tenderloin and a chicken fricassée, followed by French cheeses and desserts such as a chocolate sphere with warm chocolate and cognac sauce. Wine pairings and a French-led cellar accompany the menu, and optional caviar and wine supplements are offered for guests who want to extend the meal further.

The result is the most traditionally French formal dining at Walt Disney World: a fixed, ceremonial structure, classical technique and a direct line to one of France's defining restaurant families, served inside a theme park.

See also

• France Pavilion
• Chefs de France
• EPCOT
• World Showcase
• Takumi-Tei
• Michelin Guide