06-06-2016
French Paul Pairet is the chef at Ultraviolet in Shanghai: beloved by his colleagues, he offers a very original format combining food, images, sounds, emotions. Not to everyone’s liking however... Alessandra Gesuelli reports
Even Asia’s number one, Anand Gaggan (we wrote about him here), was afraid for a moment that the first place would end up in China, when in Bangkok the top ten at the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants for 2016 was announced. After all, there had been insistent rumours that Paul Pairet was among the favourites for the first place (in the end, he got the Chefs' Choice Award). We’ll see now where he’ll stand in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants in New York in June. Because ever since he opened his Ultraviolet in Shanghai, in 2012, everyone has been speaking of Pairet.
French, cosmopolitan, in love with Asia. He started by standing out at the Paris Cafe Mosaic where he arrived after acquiring experience all around the world. Alain Ducasse noticed him and hired him at the Ritz Carlton in Istanbul. In 2005 Asia called him and his adventure in Shanghai thus begun. In 2009 he opened casual and innovative French restaurant Mr & Mrs Bund, where he presents classics and new takes. The Chinese metropolis fell in love with him and he soon went up the critics’ lists in Asia. For 15 years however Pairet also had another dream and it came true in 2012 when he opened Ultraviolet.
Four of the possible "disguises" of the dining room at Ultraviolet
This is how Ultraviolet is designed: you book online, there’s only one table for ten people, twenty dishes and two menus, UVA and UVB. Clients arrive all together, the location is formally secret, and guests are driven there on a van from the meeting point, which is Pairet’s other restaurant. How about the prices? It’s not cheap, starting from 500 euros per person.
Tomato Mozza and Again
Of course, one must pay for the experience and then, among the guests, there are those who get touched to tears in front of an image, a scent recalling their memories. And this doesn’t happen elsewhere. «I believe the menu and the creation of the dishes come first. Images and all the rest are ancillary. Hence it is taste that must prevail on all my creative work, and the technique I choose come as a consequence. As in my Tomato Mozza and Again: two twin dishes, presented together, which turn out to be different in flavour, one is savoury and one is sweet, but with common ingredients, one with tomato and mozzarella, the other with red fruits, mozzarella and sweet tomato pulp».
See also: Journey to the centre of the earth with Pairet, by Claudio Grillenzoni
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by
Journalist and travel writer. She has visited almost one hundred countries and writes about it in the most important national newspapers. She collaborates with magazines Marco Polo and Bell’Europa and with Il Giornale's travel section. Online you can also find her on The Travel News and her blog Viaggiale