Eiffel Tower Restaurants: Where You Can Eat on the Tower

Two Michelin-decorated kitchens, a macaron counter, a champagne bar at 276 metres and buffets on three levels. Here is what is on which floor, what a table actually includes, and which of the Eiffel Tower tours and tickets put a meal in the fare.

Madame Brasserie, first floor

The tower’s first-floor restaurant, run by Michelin-starred chef Thierry Marx. The cooking is contemporary French on local, seasonal produce. You can take a table looking over the Seine and the Trocadéro, or one in the middle of the ironwork. They are genuinely different rooms to sit in.

It is the easier of the two to get into and the easier to plan around, because the first floor is where every ticket reaches anyway. The monument sells a ticket that pairs its own brunch here with a lift to the top at €121.70 for an adult.

Le Jules Verne, second floor, 125 metres up

One Michelin star, chef Frédéric Anton, Meilleur Ouvrier de France. The room is really three successive rooms. They open over the Champ-de-Mars, the Quai Branly and the Trocadéro in turn, so which table you get changes which Paris you eat in.

This is the tower’s formal restaurant and it books accordingly. It sits on the second floor, at 125 metres, which puts it ten metres above the viewing platform most visitors ride up to.

The champagne bar at the top

At 276 metres, nested into the structure itself. A glass of rosé or white, served as cold as you like, and alcohol-free drinks for anyone who would rather. It runs daily from 11am to 10.30pm, and to midnight in July and August.

There is no separate booking. If you hold a ticket to the top you can buy a glass at the bar, and the monument also sells a ticket with one included at €60.70 for an adult. One of the guided evening departures here includes a glass at the top as part of a six-person slot.

The Macaron Bar and the buffets

The Macaron Bar sits on the lower level of the second floor. It serves two recipes Pierre Hermé developed for the tower and nowhere else, alongside a selection of his own. The same macarons turn up in the first-floor bistro.

For everything quicker there are buffets on the esplanade and on both the first and second floors, savoury and sweet, hot and cold. In summer the first floor also carries a terrace with a bar, an ice-cream stand and a signature cocktail. That one is seasonal; its dates are on the events page.

Does a table come with a ticket?

This is the thing people get wrong, and it costs them the visit rather than the meal. A restaurant booking carries its own lift access, so you do not queue for a separate ticket — but it takes you to the floor you are eating on and no further.

The first-floor lunch booking listed here names the second and third floors in its own exclusions. You get the meal, you get the lift to the first floor, and you get the first floor afterwards. If you also want the platform at 115 metres or the top at 276, that is a tower ticket as well as a table.

Allow far more time than the confirmation suggests. Travellers who have eaten here say the same thing over and over. The instruction is to arrive half an hour early. Three-quarters is closer to the truth once two security checks and a lift queue stand between you and the table.

What eating on the tower costs

The monument sells several tickets with food or a drink built into them, and these are its own published adult rates. A restaurant’s own menu is separate and is set by the restaurant.

Set those against a plain lift ticket at €23.50 to the second floor or €36.70 to the top and the arithmetic is easy to do. The champagne at the top adds €24 to the fare; the brunch adds €85 and includes the meal.

Four wooden pavilions, 1889

Eating on the tower is as old as the tower. When it opened for the Exposition Universelle, four wooden pavilions stood on the first-floor platform, each seating 500 people. They were designed by Stephen Sauvestre, the architect brought in to make Gustave Eiffel’s pylon acceptable to look at.

There has been a restaurant up there in some form ever since, which is a better argument for having lunch at 57 metres than any menu is. The rest of that story is on the history page.

Where to check these figures

Every figure above comes from the monument’s own published pages, listed below. Hours and rates move, so check yours before you travel.

• Restaurants and shops
• The 1st floor
• The 2nd floor
• The Top
• Ticket rates and opening times