After four months of painstaking renovation, Ducasse hopes next weekend will see the re-opening of the tower’s high-end “Jules Verne” restaurant, revamped after 23 years, and with his signature on the menu.
“We hope to offer a global treat, based on the food as well as the time spent in this magical place,” Ducasse said in an interview. “It’s this magic cocktail we’re working towards.”
The fast-talking bespectacled 51-year-old, current holder of 15 stars awarded by the Michelin food bible, says he began fantasising a couple of years ago when driving by the tower of adding its second-storey restaurant to his growing foodie empire – 22 restaurants, five hotels, three cooking schools and a publishing house.
“I hadn’t known then that the lease was up,” he said. “But when we submitted our project to the Eiffel Tower we got a unanimous endorsement.”
Since the previous management closed its doors at the end of August, Ducasse’s team of workers have been tearing down the old premises and bringing in the new, labour carried out mostly at night to avoid harassing any of the tower’s seven million annual visitors.
And all under the watchful eye of the administrators of the almost 120-year-old 324-metre high tower.
“To preserve the structure we had to make sure the weight of the new restaurant wasn’t any heavier than the old one,” said an official at the 1889-opened symbol of the Paris skyline.
Redesigned and redecorated in creams and browns, special attention was paid to the lighting by the same expert who lit up the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, to ensure diners could see what was on their plate while enjoying the view 125 metres up from the ground.
And what will Ducasse, with establishments from New York to Monaco to Tokyo and more, be dishing up?
“First and foremost it will be a French restaurant, with French wines, French spirits and even French whisky,” he said.
With a three-course 75-euro menu for lunch and around 250 euros for a basic evening meal including drinks, Ducasse said he hoped “a visit to the Eiffel Tower restaurant would leave unforgettable memories for anyone from a businessman from Seoul to a lawyer from Bordeaux.”