Ultimate Paris Dining Guide, Part 3 - The Gastronomic Restaurants

If you adore refined cooking, appreciate exquisite detail, or are simply curious about the pinnacle of French gastronomy, then it is very hard to resist the lure of haute cuisine. But beware, these are expensive waters to splash in. A meal for two with wine in a three-Michelin-star restaurant can cost $1000, and in a two-star restaurant about half that, choose very carefully. You also need to book weeks, if not months, ahead. Lunch is easier to get into than dinner, will generally cost less, and will be no less remarkable.

Le Meurice This is what most of us think of when we think of Michelin stars – crystal chandeliers, marble columns, gilt-edged murals, flocked and tassled fabrics, and candles in a rococo-a-go-go salon. Le Meurice’s dashing, 40-year-old chef, Yannick Alléno, arrived in 2003 and took less than four years to win his three Michelin stars – a meteoric rise. Yet he didn’t do it the safe way, by reproducing the conservative excesses of the past. He did it his way, with lighter, modern dishes like a shimmering, jellied bouillabaisse, or marinated langoustine with black and white “pearls” of oscietra caviar and tapioca. A truly modern three-star Michelin experience, right down to the delectable petits fours, in a hotel that is itself among the best of the best. Hotel Meurice, 228 rue de Rivoli, 1st; +33 1 4458 1050; lemeurice.com; dinner for two $750.

Restaurant Hélène Darroze At last, a female chef poking her blonde head through the glass ceiling to gaze at the stars. Darroze is a country girl from the south-west, where both her father and grandfather were chefs. Her nine-year-old Left Bank restaurant was hotly tipped to get her third star from the Guide Michelin this year, but it didn’t happen. Personally I can’t see why not, having eaten very well indeed in this lush, plush first-floor boudoir, lined with rich, vibrant velvets and silks. Cuisine Darroze is rustic yet lavish, natural yet contrived in all the right places, from a log of Landes chicken with morels and foie gras oozing truffle-flecked jelly to the simplicity of Gascon ham sliced into wafers at the table. Dazzling. 4 rue d’Assas, 6th; +33 1 42 22 00 11; helenedarroze.com; dinner for two $600.

L’Astrance Pascal Barbot is regarded by many as the most exciting young chef in Paris, and L’Astrance the hardest three-star restaurant to get into. Partner Christophe Rohat could sell each of the 25 seats over and over every day. Once in, it’s worth it for the adventurous, brave-new-world food, from buckwheat blinis with oyster carpaccio, or crab-filled avocado ravioli with salted almonds, to sweet lobster with candied grapefruit peel. Most diners put themselves in Barbot’s hands by going for the Menu Astrance at $287 a head. 4 rue Beethoven, 16th. +33 1 40 50 84 40; dinner for two $650.

Pierre Gagnaire The conservative Parisian dining room doesn’t capture the swashbuckling, creative nature of Gagnaire’s cooking. Like works of art, his dishes tell stories and involve the improbable – who else would combine mortadella, baby scallops, lime, turnips, green apple and asparagus broth? Every dish on the menu is actually a collection of different dishes, deconstructed, so “les langoustines” is scampi done as a tartare with green mango; grilled with melted butter; sautéed with coriander; minced with Iberian ham, as a jellied consommé with carob powder; and moussed with soy bean sprouts. This can lead to total sensory overload, or to gastronomic nirvana. 6 rue Balzac, 8th; + 33 1 58 36 12 50; pierre-gagnaire.com; dinner for two $850.