Semilla

Sauce checked from the open pass

A spoon crosses the pass for seasoning before the plate leaves. Eric Trochon , chef at Semilla in Paris, brings a sauce-maker’s discipline to Rue de Seine, where the kitchen works in view of the room rather than behind a wall. His formation is Parisian in the literal sense: born in the city, trained through French cuisine, and now moving between the bench, the dining room, and the classroom as a professor at Ecole Ferrandi. In 2011, he became a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, a title that fixes his craft to examination, repetition, and a standard held in public. At Semilla, that discipline sits inside a modern French bistro rather than a sealed gastronomic room. The line is not about grand ceremony. It is about French bones, sauce-making savoir-faire, and the small pressure of Japanese and Korean touches held close to the plate. Trochon’s association with Semilla belongs to a wider Paris chain of work, from kitchens he helped guide to the restaurant he owns and leads elsewhere, and to a school where technique passes from hand to hand. Chef, teacher, MOF, and working practitioner meet in the same question of how a plate earns its finish.

Seasonality with French bones

Semilla opened in 2012 with contemporary bistro cooking built around selected produce and a menu that changes with the season. The format stays à la carte, which suits a kitchen that can move from sea bream ceviche to roast veal, pigeon, roasted cod with cockles and onion, or pork shoulder with crisp skin and slow-cooked vegetables. The technique is legible without becoming decorative. Ceviche brings acidity and freshness to the front; roasting asks for timing; veal needs a sauce that can carry tenderness without weight. The kitchen’s French base gives those plates their structure, while touches from farther east appear as accents rather than costume. In Trochon’s own grammar, lobster can meet gyoza, coral, and kimchi; at Semilla, the same appetite for tension shows in citrus, coriander, leche de tigre, spring vegetables, vin jaune, and the controlled use of pickles or herbs. The wine program follows the same table logic. Mathias, the manager and sommelier, is known here for a curated list that moves by glass, carafe, and bottle, with natural wines and bottles from Cheverny, Languedoc, and the Jura in the conversation.

The room around the bench

The room keeps the kitchen close. Wooden bistro tables, bar seats, kitchen tables near the oven, and an industrial frame give Semilla its rhythm: polished enough for a long lunch, loose enough for a cook’s gesture to remain visible. The sound carries, but it stays conversational, helped by a service style that prefers warmth to choreography. From the counter, the pass becomes part of the atmosphere; cooks taste, adjust, and send plates into a dining room that has always drawn a mixed Saint-Germain crowd rather than a single tribe. The address matters here, but not as postcard Paris. At 54 Rue de Seine, surrounded by galleries, cafés, and older bistro habits, Semilla works as a place where modern French cooking can stay direct. The last impression is not the room alone, but the spoon returning to the sauce before sea bream ceviche leaves the pass at Semilla.