About us

Le Soufflé is a fine dining traditional French soufflé restaurant in the magical village of Carmel-by-the-Sea.  It is the product of a young woman’s dream that developed over 20 years and came to fruition the day that Lisa & Tyler Foreman met Ivan Samchenko, the incredibly talented and dedicated Chef at Le Soufflé.  When you enter our restaurant, you are always being taken care of by co-owners Lisa and Ivan, who both share the love of true hospitality.  

After finding our charming corner location on Dolores Street, we started making plans to build our space filled with only the most luxurious furnishings and table settings.  This included beautifully upholstered dining chairs, elegant lighting, stemware that exquisitely showcases the boutique French producers that make up our wine list, and vintage silverware and saucières that Lisa hand-picked over the years from Paris, France to New Orleans, LA. 

We designed our six-table dining room and kitchen to create an intimate space where Ivan is able to exclusively prepare every dish for our guests.  Not only does he take time in choosing the highest quality and almost completely organic ingredients, he takes pride in preparing every single detail from scratch.  It is extremely important to us that everything consumed at Le Soufflé is the very best it can be.  When building our kitchen, we even chose to install a water filtration system so that we could serve our guests the very best drinking water including the hot water used in our french press coffee service and Mariage Frères tea service.  Quality exists in even the simple pleasures at Le Soufflé.

Staying true to our authentically French experience, we are honored to offer a thoughtfully curated wine list consisting exclusively of about 20 boutique producers from France.  Our distributors are the best in the business and have worked with us to design a list of selections all available by the glass.  There is no mark-up on our glasses and our guests will have the opportunity to try some beautiful French wines at very reasonable price points.    

Le Soufflé gives people the chance to enjoy the true art of a French soufflé in a romantic and inviting atmosphere.  It is a little piece of Paris in Carmel-by-the-Sea.