Le Jules Verne

Leave it to Alain Ducasse to have brilliantly upended one of the longest-running aphorisms about restaurants, to wit, you never eat well in places with good views. To be sure, the food at the Eiffel Tower’s Le Jules Verne was always decent, but it never came close to living up to the stunning vistas of Paris from the second level of the world’s most famous piece of nuts-and-bolts engineering. Now, though, young chef Pascal Féraud, working with Ducasse, has created a menu that may still shrewdly play second fiddle to the gorgeous panoramas and quietly chic new interior decor by Patrick Jouin–cozy browns, latticework wall inserts, low lighting and sleek modern chairs–but the food is absolutely delicious in the most blessedly subtle of ways-think Escoffier launches a website, or high-brow, low-key French gastronomy for the 21st century.

It’s unlikely that more than two out of every ten clients will be French, so this is French cooking for the global gratin, but even with this qualification, it’s still very good. For starters, try the griddled scallops with cauliflower cream and tiny pieces of crunchy Romanesco (green Italian cauliflower) or the superb terrine of chicken and foie gras with black truffles. When it comes to main courses, the fish dishes seem better than the meats at the moment—the sea bass in an old-fashioned sauce Dugléré (fish stock thickened with a roux, cream, tomatoes and mushrooms) is sublime, as is the John Dory cooked with seaweed and garnished with mixed shellfish sautéed in salted butter. Cheese isn’t a good option here, but desserts are wonderful, especially the strawberry tart with coconut and lime sorbet. Expensive, yes, but it makes for a very special occasion.

Eiffel Tower, Pilier Sud, 7th, 01.45.55.61.44. Fixed-price lunch menu €75; dinner €200. Prices are per person without wine.

Originally published in the March 2008 issue of France Today

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