A restaurant named after an aeroplane that never arrived is an odd piece of confidence, and Paris has one on a rooftop in the sixteenth. L’Oiseau Blanc is the restaurant, bar and terrace on top of The Peninsula Paris, and the name belongs to a Levasseur PL.8 biplane that left Le Bourget for New York on 8 May 1927 and was never seen again.
The two men in it were Charles Nungesser, a First World War flying ace credited with 43 victories, and François Coli. After the aircraft passed over Ireland no further verified report was made. Charles Lindbergh crossed twelve days later and took the Orteig Prize of $25,000 that Nungesser and Coli had been flying for. A replica of the biplane, built at three-quarter scale, stands on the terrace.
The site has been rebuilt around other people’s plans more than once. A palace went up here in 1864 for the Russian nobleman Alexander Basilewski; it was bought by the Duke of Sesto, renamed the Palacio Castilla, and became the exile residence of Queen Isabella II of Spain, who died there in 1904. The hotel magnate Leonard Tauber then acquired the property and built a hotel on it.
That building has form for outliving its own plans. It opened in December 1908 as the Hotel Majestic, served as a military hospital in the First World War, held French government offices from 1936 to 1944 and then the German military headquarters during the occupation, and housed UNESCO from 1946 to 1958 before becoming a conference centre for the French foreign ministry. It reopened as The Peninsula Paris on 1 August 2014.
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The rooftop is the reason to climb. From the terrace the Eiffel Tower stands close enough to make an argument about which of the two views is the view, and the kitchen has spent the years since making sure the answer is not automatic. David Bizet is the chef. Anne Coruble runs the pastry and Florent Martin the cellar. The cooking is described as traditional French revisited. In practice that means the classical repertoire taken apart and put back together without apology.
The distinctions came in two steps rather than one. L’Oiseau Blanc took its first Michelin star in February 2020, then a second in March 2022. That is a fast promotion for a hotel restaurant and a slow one for a view this good. Two stars on a roof in the sixteenth is not a common address.
Two things worth knowing before booking. The terrace is the seat everybody wants, so ask for it when you reserve rather than when you arrive. And the room is at the top of a hotel. The lift, the lobby and a certain amount of ceremony come with dinner. Neither is a complaint. It is simply not a restaurant you fall into.
The biplane on the terrace is the honest part of the design. Nungesser and Coli set off to do something nobody had done, got most of the way, and are remembered by a hotel roof and a three-quarter-scale model rather than by a record. The kitchen underneath it has taken the more reliable route.
L’Oiseau Blanc, The Peninsula Paris, 19 avenue Kléber, 75116 Paris. paris.peninsula.com