Le Grand Comeback

By Dana Thomas for Air Mail

Walk into Le Grand Véfour, one of Paris’s oldest restaurants—and for much of its history, one of its haughtiest—and you’ll immediately notice something is different. The once stodgy crimson banquettes are now a cheerful royal blue. The plates are more industrial, less faux Versailles. The waitstaff is very young, and very fashionable—as opposed to old-school and serious. The diners are discreet, and Parisian, instead of the loud tourists who, in recent years, had commandeered the place. And there’s music, or rather contemporary “Muzak.” On a summer afternoon, it was Simply Red’s “Holding Back the Years” wafting through the elegant Directoire dining room where Napoleon romanced Joséphine, Victor Hugo held court, and Colette lingered over meals.

“Le Grand Véfour is a jewel, one of the best-known restaurants in the world, ” says Alexandra de La Brosse, chief marketing officer of Paris …