Yam'Tcha

Adeline Grattard was given – and has cultivated – a rare gift: a feel for her ingredients. In her restaurant on rue Saint-Honoré, the chef chooses two or three ingredients, on which she focuses all her attention. There is no technical showmanship or ostentation, just subtle, rarely seen combinations that seem completely natural. Trained alongside Pascal Barbot (L'Astrance) and after working in Hong Kong for a few years, she combines products of extraordinary quality, mainly from France and Asia: XO sauce, vinegared black rice or shellfish jus come to mind. The food is accompanied by a rare selection of Asian teas, another source of highly convincing pairings (yam'tcha, in Chinese, means "to drink tea"). There's no menu of any kind: just the element of surprise and inspiration that comes with each dish made from the day's market-sourced ingredients.