L'Orangerie

The HQ of chef Alan Taudon is established in this glazed extension in the courtyard of the George V hotel, graced by an amazing hanging porcelain sculpture of thousands of bougainvillea petals. It provides the perfect foil to the chef’s healthy universe which zooms in on vegetables as well as dairy produce and seafood, as he voluntarily eschews meat. The ingredients are superb, the cooking is surgically precise, as is the balance struck between the flavours. Examples include blue lobster cooked on a binchotan and merguez style claws on a crunchy salad of herbs with a beetroot-horseradish dressing. As for the remarkably light sauces, they subtly combine maritime and vegetable notes and manage to bring an element of surprise to each dish, while maintaining a leitmotif that creates structure. There's never a dull moment, backed up by elegant, discreet service.