2 Best Restaurants in Rennes, Brittany

Five years in a top Tokyo kitchen transformed Chef Julien Lemarié's scintillating, pared-down cuisine, for which he quickly won a Michelin star. Using only local products—as sustainably sourced as possible—the chef crafts stunning plates, featuring line-caught fish and high-quality meats with glorious vegetable accompaniments served in an elegant, streamlined restaurant that features natural materials: wood, waxed concrete, and ceramic. The chef's romance with Japanese cuisine is front-and-center at his new restaurant next door, Imayoko, specializing in donburi and izakaya-style dishes to share paired with artisanal sake.

On full view from her open kitchen, chef Virginie Giboire is cool and precise as she prepares a sophisticated market cuisine that earned her a Michelin star, one of the few restaurants in Rennes to garner that distinction. Everyone nowadays is doing seasonal and local, but Giboire, who trained at Paris's prestigious Ferrandi school and with superstar Thierry Marx, wields a traditional mastery in dishes that carry her unique signature: mixing wild-crafted herbs and seasonal ingredients in dishes like John Dory with spring asparagus, wild garlic, and roasted buckwheat. The vibe is low-key and friendly, and the fixed price menus—there is no à la carte—are a good value.