The Tour d'Argent, the historic restaurant in the 5th arrondissement of Paris with a storied 441-year history, is set to unveil its piece de resistance: An unparalleled vantage point to witness two monumental events of 2024, the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral and the 2024 Summer Olympics.
A city landmark unto itself, and an inspiration for the restaurant in the movie "Ratatouille’’ the Tour d’Argent recently reopened after its renovation, which preserved revered traditions while adapting to the 21st century.
"It’s very reassuring for many customers to see that such establishments are still present in our history, and in French gastronomic history," owner and CEO Andre Terrail told the Associated Press (AP).
The restaurant claims to be the oldest in Paris, with its 1582 opening date embossed on the doors. It says King Henri IV ate heron pate here; "Sun King" Louis XIV hosted a meal here involving an entire cow; and presidents, artists like Salvador Dalí, and celebrities including Marilyn Monroe have graced its tables in the generations since.
Today the Michelin-starred restaurant remains one of the most exclusive places to dine in the French capital, out of reach for most. The simplest fixed-price lunch menu runs to 150 euros ($167), and the most affordable fixed-price dinner is 360 euros, and that’s without even peeking at the 8-kilo book of drinks.
But the reborn Tour d’Argent offers options for those who want to breathe in its rarefied atmosphere without investing in a full meal: A ground-floor lounge serving croissants in the morning, an adjacent bar serving fireside cocktails in the evening, and a rooftop bar open in the warmer months, where the restaurant’s breathtaking views are on full display.
Notre Dame Cathedral takes center stage in this Paris panorama, a construction site like no other. Artisans are mounting a new spire and roof on the monument, replacing those that collapsed in a 2019 fire that threatened to destroy the entire medieval cathedral.
Piece by piece, the scaffolding that enshrouds the site will come down throughout 2024, in time for its planned Dec. 8 reopening to the public.
For its neighbors at the Tour d’Argent, the restoration of Notre Dame is welcome news.
"Notre Dame is a landmark and probably had lost a little bit of attention to the Eiffel Tower," Terrail said. After the fire, Notre Dame enjoyed an injection of funding, notably from the U.S. ’’Lots of love coming from abroad, making sure that the cathedral was renovated,'' he said.
Terrail had been mulling a makeover for the Tour d’Argent too, and finally made it happen after an 18-month closure prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
"COVID-19 in a sense accelerated things, and also the Olympic Games, which are kind of an accelerator for everything in Paris," he says.
The restaurant reopened to generally positive reviews, after years in which it had been seen as resting on its laurels. Michelin says the cuisine and service were rejuvenated "without taking away from its nature."
The Tour d’Argent which translates as "Silver Tower" has a redesigned dining room with an open kitchen and a top-floor one-bedroom apartment that rents for nearly 9,000 euros a night.
Its signature dish remains pressed duck, cooked in its blood and carved in the air, a recipe popularized in 1890. That's when the restaurant started giving customers certificates with the number of each duck served. They’re now well past the one-million mark.
The bustling kitchen staff uses locally grown products and closely held recipes, like a seductive "mystery egg" starter in truffle sauce.
"You have to cook the egg white, but not the yolk,'' explains executive chef Yannick Franques.
"People, when they come to eat, are quite surprised when they don’t know the mystery and often come to me asking how I manage to keep the yolk raw inside and the white part cooked. Unfortunately, I can’t say, I just can’t say,'' he says, smiling.
‘’The secret’s the secret. Voila.''