Hando Champs-Élysées: Paris Travel Guide

A new address off Paris’s widest avenue

The Champs-Élysées does not lend itself to small, careful restaurants. It runs almost two kilometres from Place de la Concorde up to the Arc de Triomphe. Flagship stores, cinemas and café terraces with laminated menus line both sides.

Hando Champs-Élysées takes a different approach. It is a Japanese restaurant near the avenue, and it opened in 2026 as the brand’s newest and, by its own description, most ambitious location. That means you are reading about a restaurant that is still early in its life, not one with decades of habits behind it.

Chiharu Takada’s kitchen

Chef Chiharu Takada runs the kitchen. Her name is the main reason this opening drew attention. She sets the cooking at this flagship.

We have not been given a menu, and we won’t guess at one. Dishes and formats at a new restaurant often change in the first months anyway. Look at the current menu on the restaurant’s own website or social accounts before you book. That is also where prices will be posted.

Some practical questions are worth asking when you reserve:

• Is there a counter, or only tables?
• Is there a set menu, or do you order à la carte?
• Can the kitchen handle allergies or a vegetarian guest?

The Friedman & Versace room

The interior is the other headline. Studio Friedman & Versace designed it to mix Japanese references with a Parisian sense of design. Don’t expect the familiar bamboo-and-paper-lantern look, and don’t expect a copy of a Haussmann salon either.

That mix suits the location. The streets around the Champs-Élysées are lined with cream limestone Haussmann façades, wrought-iron balconies and the couture houses of nearby Avenue Montaigne. A Japanese restaurant designed to talk to that setting, rather than ignore it, has a reason to be on this block.

Leave time to look around the room. At a restaurant this new, the design is part of what you came for, and the restaurant chose it deliberately.

Getting there on Line 1

Métro Line 1 runs right under the Champs-Élysées, so it is the easiest way in. Three stations sit along the avenue:

• George V (Line 1), about halfway up the avenue
• Franklin D. Roosevelt (Lines 1 and 9), at the lower end near the Rond-Point
• Charles de Gaulle–Étoile (Lines 1, 2 and 6, plus RER A), at the Arc de Triomphe

The exact street address was not in the information we were given. Check it before you set off, then choose the closest station. From any of the three, the walk is on wide pavements, easy to manage even in smart shoes.

Driving here is a bad idea. Traffic around the Étoile is famously chaotic, and parking in the 8th arrondissement is scarce. A taxi or ride-hail to the door is fine late at night.

Booking a table at a 2026 opening

Plan this one a little. Flagship openings in central Paris tend to fill their first months with industry people and regulars from the brand’s other addresses, so arriving without a booking is risky.

• Reserve ahead. Most Paris restaurants take bookings online or by phone. Check the restaurant’s own channels for its system and confirm opening days at the same time.
• Arrive on time. Paris dinner seatings are often timed, and a table held for you won’t be held for long.
• Greet the room. Say “Bonsoir” when you walk in. In Paris this is basic courtesy, and it sets the tone with the staff.
• Paying. Cards are standard, and staff usually bring a contactless terminal to the table. Service is already included in French bills by law. Leaving a little extra for good service is welcome but optional.
• Ask for the bill. Nobody will rush you out. Say “L’addition, s’il vous plaît” when you’re ready.

The area has no strict dress code. Still, the 8th dresses up in the evening, and a room designed this carefully suits it.

Before and after: the avenue at dusk

Dinner here fits well into a walk through the western end of central Paris. The Arc de Triomphe is at the top of the avenue. Reach it through the underground passage, never by crossing the roundabout. Its rooftop terrace looks straight down the Champs-Élysées toward the Louvre.

At the lower end, the Grand Palais and Petit Palais face each other across Avenue Winston Churchill, which continues to the Pont Alexandre III and the Seine. The gilded bridge is lit after dark, and it makes a good walk after dinner.

If you’d like a drink first, Avenue Montaigne and the streets toward Avenue George V are full of hotel bars.

Who it suits

Hando Champs-Élysées suits travellers who follow new openings and like a restaurant where the design and the chef carry equal weight. It is a good pick for a planned evening in the 8th, such as a birthday or a final night in Paris.

It is not the place for a quick, cheap lunch between shops. For that, the side streets off the avenue have plenty of simpler options. Come here on purpose, with a booking and a free evening.