Les 110 de Taillevent

Elegant design and genuine French cuisine go hand in hand at the Gardinier brothers’ new brasserie. 110 wines from the Taillevent vaults are on offer, skilfully matched to the cooking, with four wines at various price levels recommended for each dish.

As befits a restaurant where the wine is so important, chef Emile Cotte’s menu concentrates on flavour and aroma, with things like golden, crispy calamari topped with fine slices of chorizo and Espelette pepper (€12), roasted duckling and caramelised endives with gingerbread (€26), or for dessert, iced nougat melting beneath strawberries spiked with balsamic vinegar (€11). Absorbed as you are by what’s on your plate, it’s impossible not to appreciate the warm oak décor created by architect Pierre-Yves Rochon. With emerald green flasksarranged in wooden racks, gilded frescoes of vineyards painted by Thierry Bruet and black and white photographs of grape-pickers hung on the walls, it’s an ode to vineyards and the scent of wine barrels.