George Clooney is reportedly preparing to open an Italian restaurant in a quiet French village, another step away from Hollywood after moving his family to France.
USA TODAY reported that the 65-year-old actor is partnering with hotelier Graham Porter on an unnamed Italian spot in Cotignac, a commune in southern France, with a planned opening in spring 2027.
Cotignac mayor Jean-Pierre Véran confirmed to the Daily Mail that Clooney is involved. The actor’s name does not yet appear on municipal paperwork tied to the project.
Porter owns the nearby Hôtel Lou Calen. USA TODAY reached out to the mayor’s office and Clooney’s representatives for comment.
Clooney and his wife, Amal, whom he married in 2014, already made France their primary residence. The couple owns a 425-acre wine estate near Brignoles in Provence, purchased in 2021, and both were granted French citizenship months before the restaurant report.
They have 9-year-old twins, Alexander and Ella. In an October Esquire profile, Clooney described the family’s life on a French farm and why he wanted distance from Los Angeles.
He told the magazine:
"We live on a farm in France. A good portion of my life growing up was on a farm, and as a kid I hated the whole idea of it. But now, for them, it's like, they're not on their iPads, you know? They have dinner with grown-ups and have to take their dishes in. They have a much better life."
He went further on Hollywood’s culture:
"I was worried about raising our kids in L.A., in the culture of Hollywood. I felt like they were never going to get a fair shake at life. France, they kind of don't give a d***... about fame. I don't want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don't want them being compared to somebody else's famous kids."
Clooney is best known on screen for films including “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Jay Kelly.” Off screen he has long mixed entertainment with business.
In 2013 he cofounded Casamigos Tequila with Rande Gerber and Michael Meldman. He previously owned a Mexican villa of the same name with Gerber. For two decades he also owned villas on Lake Como in Laglio, Italy.
The Cotignac restaurant would extend that pattern into food service, this time in the same country where he says his children can eat dinner with adults and skip the fame machine.
Details remain thin. The restaurant has no public name yet, and Clooney’s exact ownership role is unclear. Still, the mayor’s confirmation and the spring 2027 target put the project on a real timeline in a small southern French town far from the Hollywood circuit he openly distrusts for child-rearing.
When a lifelong Hollywood star plants his family, his citizenship, and now a restaurant in a place he praises for not caring about fame, it says more about the culture he left than the menu he plans to serve.
