In September, hours after landing in Paris, I headed straight to Signature Montmartre, a French Korean bistro friends had been lavishing with praise. But already this is a series of words I find startling. I had lived and worked in Paris awhile during college; I go back when I can; until this trip, I didn't recall noticing a Korean shop or restaurant here. The bistro's lights shone from large windows like an inviting beacon, guiding me to food that was, as reported, astonishing: French cuisine shot through with distinctly Korean flavors, like tender prawn-filled perilla in a curry aioli, followed by a fig tart with jujube cream, one of the most delicate, fascinating pastries I've ever had.
I talked about all this with Signature Montmartre's pastry chef Youngrim Kim. We spoke in Korean, ringed by convivial diners conversing in French. “As Korea's culture has become more known in the world, there's been an explosive growth of Korean food in Paris,” Kim said. “People come in asking for kimchi.”
It hasn't been at all easy, though, to bring Korean ingredients into a pastry like the fig tart, which in Paris is generally considered French, period, with traditionally little space for chefs diverging from expected flavors. People still balk at hints of spiciness in a pastry, Kim said, let alone staples like doenjang, a soybean paste, or gochugaru, a powder made of dried chiles. But Kim persists, and hallelujah.
This would turn out to be a leitmotif of the trip: French Asian artists, chefs, and others are making increasingly celebrated creations, and doing so in ways that let them be seen, eaten, and experienced outside the boxes of their compatriots' expectations. I'd last visited Paris in 2019; since then, I'd heard and read of a striking rise in the prominence of Asian food, art, and fashion in the city.
France has fraught historical relationships with Asian countries and cultures, and by fraught I also, of course, mean colonial. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and other parts of Asia are former French colonies; in my own experiences of Paris, I'd witnessed very little celebration of anything Asian, the sole exception being a longstanding respect for and obsession with Japan's cultural products—an obsession that, to my eye and to not a few Asian friends' eyes, can also include notes of appropriation, typecasting, and fetishization. But this new prominence sounded, perhaps, different. In conversation, Parisians had suggested that this change was a reflection of the times: The more global awareness of millennials and Gen Z'ers, as well as the exposure to other cultures and cuisines on social media, has softened the Parisian stubbornness to keep white France the focus. The change seemed considerable.
During this year's Fashion Week, for instance, the superstars of Paris's shows were K-pop idols. In 2015, Paris began hosting an annual art fair called Asia Now, whose purpose is to exhibit and bring together work from contemporary Asian artists and which, at last count, hosted 65 galleries and more than 200 artists from 26 countries. Friends said some of the restaurants they'd most loved were helmed by chefs who were Filipina, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cambodian. I was intrigued by what I was hearing.
Intrigued and with mixed feelings: Paris is, unoriginally enough, a city I deeply love. It's also a city where I've contended with frequent and vocal racism—more, perhaps, than in any other city where I've lived. I grew up in a part of the United States with a plurality of Asians, and Paris is where I began learning firsthand just how exotic I can look to some white people. Nowhere else have I been catcalled so often with hollers of “Ni hao!” and “Konnichiwa!”—salutes in languages I don't speak. On large populated Paris avenues, I've been followed and chased by men calling, absurdly, “Ching chong!” It's in Paris that I developed a firm rule of declining to tell a person I've just met where I'm “really” from. “The United States,” I'll say. “California.” “San Francisco.” “I grew up in LA.” I get increasingly, stubbornly precise: Oh, a small town half an hour from LA. My parents? Also LA. But no, where am I really, really from, people still persist in asking. What these people are, of course, really, really bent on learning: What am I, since I'm so visibly, obviously other? Meanwhile, at parties in Paris, at dinner tables, these same people have told me how racist America is, and isn't it lovely to be in France, a country with no racism?
At Phở Tài, a cherished Vietnamese restaurant beloved by crowds ranging from diasporic Vietnamese people to star chef Alain Ducasse, I met Grace Ly to discuss some of these complexities. Ly is a French Cambodian and Chinese activist, writer, and podcast host who has written extensively about Asian cuisines in Paris, and on her recommendation I ordered phở satay, a bewitching phở with beef, garlic, and peanuts. It was remarkable, its flavors gorgeously layered; every day since, I've thought about that phở, wishing I could have it again.
I asked Ly about the recent surge of popularity in Asian restaurants and culture. Please understand that, while I lived in Paris, I used to get so desperate for the occasional proximate dose of Korean flavors that at times I'd nibble on plain garlic and scallions. On this trip, delighted and bewildered, I began taking photos of all the signs I saw in hangul; K-pop alone, I thought, couldn't explain this proliferation. “Tourism being essential to the country, the image of French gastronomy is also preserved in a traditional way,” Ly said. But more recently, and with the rise of social media, “France could no longer resist the ascension of East and Southeast Asian food on the global scene,” along with excellent cuisines from other parts of the world. “We no longer need traditional journalists to prescribe trends, and that made all the difference: Peers recommend joints that do not need validation by the dominant culture,” Ly said.
Similar dynamics are driving a rising interest in contemporary Asian art. Asia Now has grown rapidly from its first incarnation in 2015, when it had just 18 galleries. Meanwhile, George Chen, a San Francisco restaurateur, is scheduled to open a massive multistory food emporium called Asia Live in the Carrousel du Louvre, which opens onto the Louvre. Starting as early as 2024, people will be able to stop for dim sum and roast duck before proceeding to look at, say, Théodore Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa.
I visited several galleries that have taken part in Asia Now, joining both Parisian and tourist art viewers. At the first one, A2Z Gallery, I stood a long time, desperately moved, in front of a vast all-black painting by Bao Vuong. He'd left Vietnam in the late 1970s as a refugee with his family, and his painting depicted a luminous impasto ocean at night. If I could have, I'd have bought his painting on the spot; I did not want to leave it behind. A second gallery, Galerie Marguo, hosted artist Xie Fan's first solo exhibition in Europe, and I was enthralled by shimmering paintings that layered gold foil and oil on terra-cotta panels. But, as I knew to expect, a less inviting Paris was also still present. In high spirits, drunk on art, I was lingering in a final gallery when a white person shouted “Ni hao!” across the quiet space. This stranger smiled with pride. Like a dog, I thought, that had pulled off a trick. I left.
In conversations with French Asian people, I kept hearing that, yes, racism against Asian people—and toward other people of color—is definitely, thoroughly flourishing in Paris, as is the work of more and more creative Asian people. Kim Lê, a French-born ceramist whose studio has captivating earth-toned vases, urns, and other pottery, said a great hope is that her wares will be able to be seen without cliché-riddled filters that come with Lê's being Asian.
Another prominent example is Céline Chung, a Paris-born chef who has opened four thriving Paris restaurants. I met Chung in Bao Express, a vast dim sum parlor with an expansive, plant-lush atrium that opened this year. Asked if she had a guiding philosophy behind her restaurants, Chung listed off the painful stereotypes of Chinese cuisine she'd heard growing up: “It's cheap, it's very oily, the restaurants aren't clean.” So, she said, she's paid close attention to details of decor and architecture and frequently relies on organic products. Bao Express has an open kitchen so that her patrons—who include diasporic Asians, other Parisians, and tourists—can watch the chefs' intricate craft. It sounds, I said, as though she's had to put a lot of time into educating people while also feeding them.
“Exactly,” Chung said. “It's a lot of education.”
Khánh-Ly Huynh, who won the blockbuster televised cooking competition MasterChef France in 2015, has also grappled with limiting ideas of what Vietnamese food can and should be. I stopped by Nonette Bánh Mì & Donuts, Huynh's lauded takeout place, for bánh mì and donuts. Her signature đặc biệt sandwich, with five meats, butter, and exquisite pickles prepared in-house, was magnificent: the most complex, nuanced bánh mì I've tasted in a life strewn with single-minded pursuits of delicious bánh mì. Nonette offers several kinds, including for vegetarians and vegans. But people often think, Huynh said, that she's insulting Vietnamese food, or that it's somehow not Vietnamese enough. But “bánh mì is a super fluid theme in Vietnam,” she said, open—much like, say, pizza—to infinite variations.
“Everybody likes to put you in a category,” said Moko Hirayama, pastry chef and co-owner of the celebrated Mokonuts, an intimate restaurant with an inventive, highly seasonal menu that changes daily. In France she's constantly being asked to define the restaurant: Is it fusion, what's its mold, what's its specialty? “I don't know what the specialty is. We do food based on the ingredients that are available, fresh ingredients. What else can I say?”
I thought of something Ly had said: “The French will say, We don't want political correctness from the US, because that will put us in boxes.” Who gets to exist outside of a category, and who's expected to stay in its confines? With and despite such expectations, Asians in Paris are exploding out of boxes in which they never belonged, and the results are glorious.
A New Paris
For this trip, R.O. Kwon visited Southeast- and East Asian–run restaurants, galleries, and shops. Here are a handful you can visit yourself.
1st through 6th arrondissements
Besides Kimchi has thoughtfully curated clothing, stationery, ceramics, and other items from Korea and Koreans in the 4th, and nearby is a branch of Ace Mart, a big, well-stocked Korean and Japanese grocery store with ready-to-eat meals. Art galleries showing contemporary artists include A2Z Art Gallery in the 6th, and Galerie Marguo and Liusa Wang in the 3rd.
7th arrondissement
Pauline Sunhee Choi, a Korean Canadian artist based in Paris, makes dappled “light box paintings” and her work can be seen in the American Library in Paris. La Table d'Aki has a delicate, precise seafood-centering tasting menu informed by the almost 20 years Akihiro Horikoshi spent managing the fish section of the venerated L'Ambroisie. Tomy & Co is a Michelin-starred gourmet bistro from Cambodian-born chef Tomy Gousset.
8th arrondissement
L'Abysse might have the finest sushi in Paris, and it's no surprise they've received Michelin stars. I'll never forget their signature liquid-nitrogen-frozen shiso dessert. Chef Ji-Hye Park mingles Korean and French flavors at OMA, a restaurant in the high-end boutique hotel Château des Fleurs. Rivoli Fine Art focuses on contemporary artists with origins in the Philippines. Its gallerist, Jeffrey Cadayong, also devotes a great deal of time to uncovering historically significant Filipino paintings he's taken back to Manila. Rivoli Fine Art can be visited by appointment. Hôtel de Crillon from the Hong Kong–based Rosewood group is located on the Place de la Concorde, with a luxurious spa that offers Asian-inspired treatments.
11th arrondissement
There's a splendid explosion of restaurants run by Asian people in the 11th. One is Mokonuts, with delicious breakfasts and a seasonal lunch menu that changes daily, including admirable desserts from Moko Hirayama. Bao Express offers dim sum and much more in a spacious, meticulously designed setting. Inside, you can take the stairs down to The Underpool, a hidden bar offering appetizing cocktails, open until 2 a.m. Nonette Bánh Mì & Donuts sells Khánh-Ly Huynh's exquisite, balanced bánh mì with delightful options for vegetarians and vegans. Maison by Sota Atsumi guides diners through an inventive tasting menu in a light-filled two-story house. Le Servan, described by owners and sisters Katia and Tatiana Levha as a French bistro with an Asian twist, is widely praised and award-winning. More recently, they opened Double Dragon, which focuses on Philippines-influenced cuisine. Folderol peddles renowned ice cream and wine, with lines out the door in all seasons. Pierre Sang's lauded namesake first restaurant is in Oberkampf, where he blends French traditions with Korean techniques and tastes.
13th arrondissement
In the arrondissement with the largest populations from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and China, you'll find the beloved Phσ' Tài. Chef Te Ve Pin, who left Vietnam in 1968, serves delectably spicy, creamy beef phσ'. You might also want to order the splendid bò bún, with tender beef. The Chablis on the menu pairs beautifully with both. For superb Laotian and other Southeast Asian food, go to Lao Lane Xang or Lao Lane Xang 2, which are across the street from each other.
18th & 19th arrondissements
Outside of the center of Paris, Signature Montmartre features striking, modern Korean-influenced French bistro dishes on a constantly changing menu. Lao Siam provides richly flavored plates inspired by the Laotian and Thai traditions of its founders. In Kim Lê's studio, she creates and shows gorgeous earth-toned vases, urns, and other ceramics intended for everyday use.
Additional reporting by Lindsey Tramuta
This article appeared in the December 2023 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.