Le Jules Verne

Le Jules Verne

Our dinner at Le Jules Verne restaurant was magical. From the moment we rode the private heated elevator with an escort from the ground floor of the South Pillar, up 125 meters to the restaurant reception half way up the famous Eiffel Tower in Paris, we felt special. Although our expectations were high, based on previous visits to the restaurant at France’s most iconic monument, we were delighted with the evening.
We were pleased to have been assigned one of the few coveted window side tables. Below us, thousands of lights twinkled, bringing to mind the words City of Lights as Paris is also known.

Restaurant le Meurice – Alain Ducasse

Restaurant le Meurice – Alain Ducasse

For years I have liked the elegant dining room of Restaurant le Meurice in the eponymous hotel facing one of the city’s best known tourist streets. In 2013, famed chef Alain Ducasse was invited to oversee the food service at the hotel and restaurant. On our most recent trip to Paris, we had lunch there and were left with the impression that the restaurant has much promise.
Since our last visit we noticed subtle changes. For example, access to the restaurant was via the entrance foyer of the hotel rather than from the lobby lounge where it had been before. A new embroidered panel graced a section near the restaurant door, and Baccarat crystal art was in evidence in the dining room.

Le Burgundy

Le Burgundy

In a city that is home to 50 Five Star hotels, many of them so firmly entrenched in their luxury status that they have long become legends, the relatively new Le Burgundy (opened in 2010) stood out for its privileged location first of all, on a relatively quiet street just a few steps away from Place Vendome, Rue Royale and Rue Saint-Honore, in the enclave of prestigious Right Bank addresses that are the pulse of Paris fashion. Then there was its already established reputation for personalized service, the kind only an intimate boutique hotel can provide. This was confirmed the instant I reached the property, by the doorman’s attentive welcome and the instantaneous check in process. I barely had time for a passing glance at the glassed in winter garden that is the heart of the public spaces or the art gallery like reception area with its bright mural sculpture behind a long white leather and marble reception desk before I was graciously escorted to my suite.

Hotel de Nell

Hotel de Nell

In the early 1850s, France’s newly minted Emperor Napoleon III commissioned Baron Charles-Eugene Haussmann to undertake an ambitious urban modernization program throughout Paris. Entire popular neighborhoods of medieval alleyways were razed to make way for the broad boulevards and airy streets lined with harmonious residential and public buildings that we know today. In the center of the Right Bank, the ninth arrondissement flourished as a center of artistic and intellectual life. Most of the Romantic elite, Edgar Degas, Eugene Delacroix, George Bizet, Hector Berlioz, Frederic Chopin and George Sand among them, made their home there at some point. To this day, this tony neighborhood off the familiar tourist circuits has retained virtually intact its harmonious 19th century architecture, tranquil courtyards and Belle Epoque charm. But it was notably lacking luxury hotel accommodations; until the recent opening of the exquisite boutique Hotel de Nell.

Restaurant Jean-François Piège

Restaurant Jean-François Piège

We liked this restaurant’s intimate casual style, retro modern décor, and complex, unique and adventurous cuisine. Well presented dishes were accompanied by a small amount of table side showmanship.
The ambiance was reminiscent of dining at the home of an acquaintance who happened to be a gourmet food lover. Each course was a mini world unto itself.

Rech

Rech

The employee wearing a rubber apron and processing shellfish at the entrance and the bistro style ground floor dining area belied the refined ambiance we found once we climbed a narrow staircase to the first floor of Rech, long known for its seafood in a city preoccupied with eatable treasures from the seas. As the first to arrive for lunch we were thrilled to have the dining room to ourselves for a few minutes until the next guests appeared.