There are a lot of restaurants that impress me, but few that touch me and create an emotional connection. Plénitude does both.
It opened just 2.5 years ago and already has iconic status in the gastronomic world, ranked No. 14 and, naturally, awarded 3 Michelin stars. It is housed within the equally impressive Cheval Blanc hotel. Both are owned by LVMH, which naturally means that money is no object and the clientele are not simple foodies but their clientele are accustomed to the highest levels of luxury and service.
Many restaurant owners have deep pockets, but not all of them make the best use of them. Too often the money is spent on flash rather than substance. What happens when the world’s largest luxury group builds a restaurant designed around its clientele? I was about to find out.
Most restaurant experiences start when you enter the lobby, but at Plénitude it started earlier. It is standard for restaurants to ask you to confirm your booking by email or phone a few days in advance. I was therefore surprised when the restaurant called me just hours before my reservation. The purpose was to reconfirm allergies, but also to ask whether I had any special requests or if there was anything extra they could do for us.
It might seem like a simple gesture, but to me it was a powerful way of putting the guest and their wishes first, even before they step into the restaurant. The first of many examples of the immense hospitality that Plénitude offers. Perhaps this is the kind of service LVMH provides in its luxury boutiques to its regular customers, but it certainly impressed me.
The dining room is modern and elegant, and all of the waiters wear clothes designed by LVMH, whether a suit for the men or skirts and tailored trousers for the women. Luxury through and through.
Being a 3 Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris, you might expect the atmosphere to be stuffy and formal, but quite the contrary. It feels warm and elegant. It is almost stating the obvious, but you can see the vast investment in the restaurant. The execution, however, is extremely tasteful. It is visible in the beautiful chairs, the vases and the plates rather than anything overtly flashy.
The concept of the menu is a journey through France through the lens of sauces. This means something as simple as not calling them dishes but sauces.
The only exception is the first three snacks, which follow a more traditional path: an oyster, tuna tartare with caviar and a much more refreshing tart topped with a herbal gel. A great start, but nothing that seriously impressed me. For that, I needed the sauces, and the first one was about to arrive.
A beautiful gambero shrimp came with several emulsions and sauces, ranging from a rich gambero stock filled with umami to smaller emulsions built around bergamot, Thai basil and yuzu, bringing welcome acidity and balance to a dish that could otherwise have become too intense.
With the help of the delicious bread, I naturally wiped the plate clean of every last drop. It was almost as if the kitchen came alive when serving sauces. The complexity of the dishes, the abundance of elements and the elegant presentation all showed the team’s passion for sauces.
For the next couple of courses, the restaurant would leave a small pot of sauce on the table alongside the plated dish, encouraging you not only to add more sauce but also to taste it on its own, as it was the main attraction. I naturally did exactly that, and almost never did a bowl or plate leave the table with any sauce remaining.
It was also then that I realised Plénitude is all about comfort. After all, you sit in wonderfully comfortable chairs, all facing the beautiful Pont Neuf. What could be better than simply drinking a delicious sauce straight from the bowl?
A simple piece of blue fish, grilled hard and fast on the skin while remaining almost raw in the centre, accompanied an equally rich and complex sauce.
I didn’t realise it until later, but all of the dishes look simple while holding incredible levels of flavour and complexity. That is possible because almost all of the complexity is built into the sauce.
It takes a master to balance grilled sardine, escabeche stock, lemon juice, egg yolk and Mexican tarragon in a single sauce, but Arnaud Donckele and the team at Plénitude make it happen.
The best example came next. Many restaurants serve a “garden salad” — a plate of raw or grilled vegetables held together by a simple vinaigrette or light sauce. Here, what looked simple was anything but. Each element was carefully chosen and placed to create a small work of art, while a sauce made from raw and grilled vegetables tied everything together. A richer sauce would have been the obvious choice, but instead they chose restraint. It was a genius decision.
The move towards heavier dishes such as blue lobster and turbot also meant that the sauces gained more depth and richness through the addition of butter.
The lobster was accompanied by two sauces of different colours served from the same bowl, an impressive achievement in itself as they remained perfectly separated.
From the king of shellfish we moved to the king of fish in the form of turbot, served with a generous amount of caviar, fennel and a sauce carrying notes of anise, tomato and brown butter.
Neither dish was technical in the modern sense of the word. There were no elaborate fermentations or pieces of machinery transforming flavours and textures. Instead, they felt like the result of sublime craftsmanship. Delicate, pleasing and deeply comforting dishes that almost anyone would enjoy.
The same may not be true for the final fish dish. Red mullet was paired with two sauces carrying so much richness that they might not be for everyone. One sauce brought classic iron-rich flavours from red mullet liver, rockfish, bone marrow and sea urchin, just to name a few. My own preference leaned towards the previous dishes.
More or less only in France would you find chicken served in a 3 Michelin-starred restaurant, and I am glad they did.
The chicken was juicy but not bloody, something I have never managed to achieve myself, which made me appreciate it even more. The sauce was built on Jura wine, chicken stock and roast jus, creating a comforting, homely feeling much like a Sunday roast, only elevated to another level.
Looking around the dining room, it was easy to see that many of the guests at Plénitude are also customers of LVMH. Not all of them may be food connoisseurs, but they are used to world-class hospitality and luxury. The kind of luxury that reveals itself not through flash, but through the quality of the product and the craftsmanship behind it.
That is also Plénitude.
Only upon closer inspection does the true quality reveal itself. What appears to be a simple chicken dish is, on closer inspection, a piece of culinary art.
My wife and I were lucky enough to share two different desserts and they truly were different. The first focused on strawberry, while the second was a melon dessert shaped like a perfect rose, served with a floral and acidic sauce.
It was exactly what I needed after a long tasting menu built around sauces.
It would be unfair to say that the desserts were built around sauces in the same way as the savoury courses. They weren’t. They certainly contained sauce elements, but unlike the previous dishes these were much simpler in style and less distinctive.
Plénitude once again proved itself to be one of the best restaurants in the world across food, wine and service.
At the start of the meal, the maître d’ knelt down to speak to us at eye level. Throughout the meal everything was handled with great professionalism, but every interaction felt like a conversation rather than a presentation.
The head sommelier was equally attentive. Instead of simply presenting five different champagnes, she started a conversation about our preferences and made recommendations based on that. At one point I declared my love for champagne, which led her to adapt the standard wine pairing to include three champagnes from both major houses and smaller grower-producers.
Even before walking through the doors you can see the effort that has gone into creating the experience. It is a deeply luxurious and remarkably complete experience without obvious restrictions. Restrictions that, in many places, would have been financial.
Here it feels as though there are no limits.
That can be dangerous and downright disastrous in the wrong hands. LVMH proved to be the right hands.
It is clear that their experience with high-net-worth individuals and personalised service has been carried into every aspect of the restaurant. A showcase of what hospitality can become when resources, craftsmanship and attention to detail are all given equal priority.
The result is a global icon.
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