What Makes This Paris Restaurant Ranked "Best in the World?"

Guy Savoy, who trained superstar chef Gordon Ramsay, owns the Guy Savoy restaurant located on the Left Bank of the River Seine. It received an incredible 99.75 out of 100 in the annual La Liste ranking—a “more scientific and reliable” rival to the British version. Here we delve behind the scenes to discover the secret to its world-class outstanding cuisine.

The main reason why this restaurant has been handpicked as one of the best for its culinary standards comes down to the breathtaking presentation, pointing to an unquestioned mastery of technique.

The restaurant insists that food which is “intrinsically virtuous should be equally beautiful extrinsically.” This means that aesthetic precision, painstakingly assembled, is always a key ambition during the delicate making of these masterpieces.

The restaurant is praised for pioneering incredible gastronomic innovations as creative and unique as barbecued pigeon, dressed up in the finest sauces, of course. Other fabulously creative signature dishes on offer, ensuring the experience is truly one of a kind, include blue lobster in the “Land & Sea” dish, and poached quince and artichoke smothered in black truffle, a favorite vegetable of Guy Savoy’s. The chef is particularly spectacular with seafood.

The gastronomic innovations do not stop at ingredients, they also extend to its assemblage. The chef takes pride in his architectural talent and mastery of space, managing to balance the most precarious of food items to fashion exciting delicious sculptures like in his “Terrine de pamplemousse” dessert.

The chef insists that quality can only be obtained if seasonality is respected in all its wisdom, since, after all, nature is the force that knows food the best. One of his key principles is that “man is wholly connected to his physical surroundings,” and so should only ever savor what is seasonally available. This particularly applies to vegetables and fruits, such as cherries in the rouge cerise dessert.

The chef is said to revel in associations which bring together states of contrast and harmony, bringing the simple act of eating alive to the imaginative mind as much as to the taste buds. Take his famous “iced poached oyster” dish, for example, alluding to two slightly different aquatic environments to spark imaginative engagement.

In this dish, the shell is lined with a lightly creamed purée of oyster; a raw oyster is laid upon it and covered with a jelly of oyster juice. A strip of sorrel, a touch of pepper, and a brunoise of lemon finishes it off.

The incredible attention to detail extends from the dishes to the very tables on which they are placed. “No table is identical to any other,” says Christophe Leboursier, director of Restaurant Guy Savoy.

The team works with talented artists and designers to conceive and produce each ornament present on the restaurant’s tables, the majority of which are so precious they are available to purchase in their boutique.

Guy Savoy Restaurant, 11 Quai de Conti, La Monnaie 75006