Review: Shangri-La Paris – an ode to the world’s best food

Few hotels can rival the Shrangri-La Paris for its views on the Eiffel Tower. The building that now houses the hotel was built in 1896 by Prince Roland Bonaparte, Napoleon’s grandnephew and last descendant of the family.

Many of its main rooms are classified as historical monuments, including the grand salon, modelled on the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, but with Napoleon I’s gold bee emblem in bas relief visible throughout.

Funnily enough, the prince’s main apartments don’t face the Eiffel Tower, because it was widely viewed as an eyesore at the time. Fortunately, most guest rooms have breathtaking views of it. From my aptly named Eiffel View Room, I was able to enjoy the nightly tower light show.

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The hotel’s restaurant Shang Palace, Paris’s only Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant, is another draw. It might seem strange to come to one of the world’s great culinary capitals to eat Chinese food, but what food it is. Chef Tony Xu acquired his expertise in his home city of Chengdu, China, where he also earned his first Michelin star.

We started with a selection of classic dim sum, all of which were familiar but made to a level rarely experienced outside the very best restaurants. Next was a revelatory ice plant salad – a vegetable from Inner Mongolia that contains natural crystals, giving it a pleasing, crunchy texture. That was paired with a simple sesame dressing.

There was also an elevated fried rice with lobster, asparagus and brown rice, taking the ordinary to the extraordinary. And, of course, don’t miss the Waygu beef – a short rib with tofu braised until unctuous in a rich sauce fragrant with star anise and other spices.

A masterclass in making dim sum

A great way to get a behind-the-scenes look at how it is all made is to have a dim-sum lesson in the kitchen. Here you will find the best chefs from China, each a master of their own station, from the wok man and the Peking duck master to our own dim-sum teacher, who trained for 15 years before he could be called a master.

We made steamed pork and prawn dim sum in a pastry dyed red with beetroot juice. The pastry itself was the most technically challenging part, with the beetroot juice having to be heated to precisely 70 degrees to make the gluten in the wheat and cornflour become pliant enough to kneed and roll out.

Our efforts were less than expert and, despite the patience of chef Xu and his dim-sum master, we definitely needed the pre-prepared dough they had on stand-by.

Each of the dim sum were carefully labelled so that we could tell them apart from the rest of the dim sum – an unnecessary process as it was quite clear which ham-fisted attempts were ours.

But they were still delicious and it was amazing to be able to see talented people at work, if rather humbling.

Apart from certain ingredients impossible to source locally, the chefs go to great length to procure most of the produce from France.

Across all the restaurants in the hotel they focus on using the best local and seasonal ingredients, including the Wagyu beef, which comes from a farm in Normandy – the first farm in France to produce pure-breed Wagyu.

We visited it along with the hotel’s executive chef, Quentin Testart. He cooked us possibly the best barbecue I’ve ever had with the delicious cuts of beef served alongside simply grilled local vegetables, local wines and amazing bread and cheeses, including the Neufchâtel, a heart-shaped soft cheese made from unpasteurised cow’s milk and one of the oldest kinds of cheese in France.

Also with us were the farmers who, with two local vets, have spent years developing the perfect Wagyu beef cattle, alongside their own herds of Normandy cows, fed on a strict natural diet and which are free to graze happily in the rich pasture.

Fine cheeses and fresh bread

For a traditional lunch, go to Le Stella, a typical Parisian brasserie full of locals enjoying the freshest oysters, seafood platters, traditional escargots and other classics of French fare.

Breizh Café is another popular lunchtime haunt, serving traditional crêpes and galettes made with organic Breton buckwheat. I had these wafer-thin galettes with ham, comté, an organic egg and generous servings of Bordier butter, an outstanding freshly churned butter made with organic French milk.

If you’d like to take this butter home, around the corner is both the Marché couvert de Passy – a wonderful food market that is still used by locals rather than being overrun with tourists – and La Grande Epicerie, a veritable gastronomic temple to the best produce where you can find whole fridges dedicated to glorious butters, the best freshly baked breads and patisseries, alongside everything else.

Don’t miss the cellar with it’s selection of the finest Champagnes, wines and spirits.

After all that shopping, repairing to Shangri-La Paris was a welcome relief. Located in what was once the Prince’s stables is a large swimming pool leading onto an outdoor terrace, perfect to stretch out those tired limbs.

There’s also a state-of-the-art gym if you need it and a spa offering massages and treatments that promises to help you achieve perfect serenity.

Natasha was a guest of Shangri-La Paris and Eurostar. Room rates start at €2,000 per night, while Eurostar Business Premier starts from £275.