George Clooney launches new career as a restaurateur as he opens an Italian eatery in France - just months after he and Amal became French citizens

George Clooney is launching a new career as a restaurateur in the south of France - just months after he and wife Amal became French citizens and made the country their main family base.

The Hollywood star, 65, is set to open a new Italian restaurant in the picturesque Provençal village of Cotignac, close to the sprawling estate where he lives with Amal, 48, and their nine-year-old twins Ella and Alexander. 

The venture is due to open next spring and will see George team up with Canadian hotelier Graham Porter, owner of the nearby Lou Calen hotel.

The move combines George's love of France with his long-running love affair with Italy, where he has owned his famous Lake Como villa for more than two decades.

Renovation work is already under way for the new restaurant, which will take over the former Les 3 Marches site at 11 Cours Gambetta. Its name, chef and menu are yet to be revealed.

Cotignac mayor Jean-Pierre Véran has confirmed George's involvement, but the Ocean's Eleven star's name does not yet appear on municipal paperwork connected with the scheme, which is being handled through Lou Calen.

The restaurant will be just around 20km from Domaine du Canadel, the wine estate near Brignoles which George and Amal bought in 2021 and have increasingly made their family home. 

The power couple and their two children became French citizens in December 2025 after their naturalisation was formally published in the country's official journal.

The actor has previously explained why the family have embraced life in France, saying he prefers bringing up Ella and Alexander away from the glare of Hollywood.

He told Esquire last year: '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.

'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 s*** about fame...

'I don't want them being compared to somebody else's famous kids.'

George's latest venture is also fitting for a star who has long made no secret of his love of Italian food - and claims to be the more useful Clooney in the kitchen.

In 2020, George joked that while Amal could take on some of the world's toughest human rights cases, cooking was not her strongest suit.

He said: 'My wife makes reservations for dinner... so I do a lot of the cooking in the family.'

And his years spent at Lake Como appear to have influenced what he serves up at home.

Years earlier, he said: 'I'm a pretty decent chef myself. I make a nice pasta because I spend time in Italy.'

Food even played a role in one of the biggest moments of the couple's relationship. George cooked for Amal on the night he proposed to her at home in April 2014, before hiding her engagement ring in a drawer and getting down on one knee.

Recalling the proposal, he has joked that his romantic menu was simply 'pasta of some form'.

The couple married five months later in a lavish four-day celebration in Venice, cementing George's already long-standing love affair with Italy.

Italy has remained an important part of the family's life, with George continuing to spend time at Villa Oleandra, the Lake Como property he bought in 2002.

He returned to Venice last month to receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival, where he also revealed that family life is now shaping the amount of work he takes on.

George said he intended to continue acting but was stepping back from directing films because the lengthy shoots would take him away from Ella and Alexander for too long.

He explained that acting might require him to be away for around three months, whereas directing could consume as much as a year, adding that his children were now too old simply to be moved from school to school while he worked.

His restaurant project gives him another venture much closer to home, with Cotignac lying in the heart of the area where the Clooneys have built their French life.