{"id":2061270,"date":"2026-06-15T12:40:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T10:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/2026\/06\/15\/the-mandarin-oriental-paris-and-the-paradox-of-the-vegetable-garden\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T12:42:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T10:42:39","slug":"the-mandarin-oriental-paris-and-the-paradox-of-the-vegetable-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/2026\/06\/15\/the-mandarin-oriental-paris-and-the-paradox-of-the-vegetable-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mandarin Oriental, Paris and the Paradox of the Vegetable Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Rue Saint-Honor\u00e9, just a short walk from Place Vend\u00f4me, a hotel with 96 rooms and 39 suites has planted grass on its roof. This is not a metaphor. <\/p>\n\n

The Mandarin Oriental, Paris\u2019s summer 2026 program is built around a subtle cohesion that the press release doesn\u2019t really articulate: several of the season\u2019s creations\u2014a Sunset Spritz<\/em> at Bar 8, a Botanica<\/em> made with cucumber and mint, a selection of vegetable-based appetizers at Cam\u00e9lia\u2014draw their flavors from the rooftop garden. Executive Chef Nina Haradji and the bar team work from the same starting point, a few floors above the dining tables. In an urban environment where space is so limited that almost nothing can grow, this is a concept worth noting. <\/p>\n\n

Architecture Designed by Two Hands<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The hotel itself is a collaborative effort. Jean-Michel Wilmotte oversaw the overall architecture; Sybille de Margerie designed the decor for the guest rooms, the spa, and the public spaces; the duo Gilles & Boissier designed the presidential suite; and the firm Jouin-Manku handled the interior design of the bar and restaurants. Four interpretations of the same space, whose coherence rests less on stylistic unity than on the tension between their respective design languages. The interior garden\u2014a tree-lined terrace open Monday through Friday from noon to 10:30 p.m.\u2014is the focal point of these elements. <\/p>\n\n

It is in this garden that Le Cam\u00e9lia serves its summer brunches under the direction of Nina Haradji. Charcoal-grilled dishes form the backbone of the Sunday menu: barbecue-grilled green asparagus with mustard<\/em>, tomato carpaccio with dill oil<\/em>, giant prawns<\/em>, or Jersey ribeye<\/em> prepared via live cooking, each served with a choice of three sides. This isn\u2019t hotel cuisine in the usual sense\u2014it\u2019s terrace cuisine that embraces its seasonality without overdoing it. <\/p>\n\n

Pastry as Geometry<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Julien Dugourd, a consulting pastry chef, holds a unique place in the culinary world. His strawberry-rhubarb Pavlova<\/em>, his vanilla-caramel Saint-Honor\u00e9<\/em>, and the six summer ice cream creations (lemon-basil, chocolate-caramel-peanut ice cream bar, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, vanilla-red berries) do not seek to erase these references\u2014they reinterpret them. His Jeu, Set & Match<\/em> pastry, served at Bar 8 through June 7, layers crisp, lemon confit, lemon biscuit, tarragon gel, and vanilla-lemon mousse in a composition as graphic as it is precise. The tarragon in a lemon pastry isn\u2019t a seasonal coincidence: it\u2019s a technical choice regarding the herb\u2019s bitterness. <\/p>\n\n

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The Summer Afternoon Tea at Le Cam\u00e9lia (available starting May 1, 3:00\u20135:30 p.m., for 68 euros per person) includes an upside-down raspberry tart<\/em>, a crispy lemon-tarragon<\/em> tart, a strawberry-rhubarb tart<\/em>, and a chocolate praline mille-feuille<\/em> \u2014five pieces that showcase Julien Dugourd\u2019s aromatic palette, all centered on a single concept: acidity as the guiding thread, texture as the focal point.<\/p>\n\n

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The vegetable garden as a place<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The Botanica<\/em> \u2014fresh cucumber, mint, and Saint-Germain liqueur\u2014is presented as a cocktail inspired by the rooftop garden. The Sunset Spritz<\/em> was created through a direct collaboration between Nina Haradji and the bar, using herbs and spices from the same space. This short supply chain within a luxury hotel, on the busiest stretch of the First Arrondissement, isn\u2019t an ecological argument. It\u2019s a statement of mastery: we produce what we serve, just a few meters away. <\/p>\n\n

In the Parisian luxury hotel industry, provenance is usually a matter of naming specific suppliers\u2014such as a particular caterer, seafood supplier, or winery. Vertical integration all the way down to the rooftop garden represents something else: an attempt to close the loop within the building itself. While the gesture remains symbolic on the scale of a single restaurant, it speaks to the evolving expectations of guests for whom traceability has become an integral part of the dining experience. <\/p>\n\n

This summer, Domaines Ott\u2605 is offering special lunch specials on the terrace. The Spa, in a renewed partnership with Evoleum, offers two sequential treatments: a thirty-minute exfoliation ritual followed by a sixty-minute massage in July, then an eighty-minute drainage massage complemented by cryotherapy wraps in August. The season has an internal narrative, from the vegetable garden to the table, from the bar to the skin. It\u2019s not half bad. <\/p>\n\n

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On Rue Saint-Honor\u00e9, just a short walk from Place Vend\u00f4me, a hotel with 96 rooms and 39 suites has planted grass on its roof. This is not a metaphor. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2056416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30494,30409,70532,30763],"tags":[77740,77737,77736,77738,77739],"class_list":["post-2061270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-and-wine-en","category-gastronomy","category-restaurants","category-travel","tag-bar-8-at-the-mandarin-oriental","tag-brunch-at-camelia-paris","tag-camelia-restaurant-paris","tag-julien-dugourd-pastry-chef","tag-nina-haradji-head"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2061270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2056416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2061270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2061270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luxsure.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2061270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}