We were lucky enough to be hosted for lunch at Camélia, an outdoor garden restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental on our recent weekend trip to Paris. Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Camélia is a laid back and beautiful setting especially on a nice sunny day. The food is traditional French with a modern twist, as Chef Thierry Max combines all types of food in new and creative ways.
The restaurant offers indoor and outdoor dining, the terrace option being desirable on a sunny Parisian day. But even if it rains there are some private dining tables hidden under tented canopies. The garden is a delightful place to while away an afternoon with girlfriends sipping champagne or to indulge in a full three course lunch, complete with unique cocktails.
To start we ordered the Le Homard Blue (Blue Lobster) which arrived beautifully presented with vegetable rolls and coral mayonnaise, and the Les Tomates, a delicious dish served with burrata and strawberries. For our main courses we enjoyed the Le Bar (seabass) served with zucchini, ginger and cucumber sauce and the La Vollaile, a chicken dish accompanied with chanterelles and artichoke poivrade. Each dish I would thoroughly recommend.
Paris may be known for being the City of Love, but for me its the City of Desserts and you will not disappointed with the sweet options in Camelia! We ordered Le Saint Honore, a delicious dessert of creampuff pastry, salted butter caramel and vanilla cream and La Tarte Louise, a beautifully presented sugar crust pastry dessert filled with almond and raspberry cream, pink grapefruit cream and topped with fresh raspberries. And if that wasn’t enough we had a tower of smaller biscuits and macaroons.
After lunch we took a tour around the hotel, viewing the bar area and some of the guest rooms. Each Mandarin Oriental has a unique fan that is made especially for the hotel, at the Paris hotel this is mounted just outside of the Camelia restaurant. Over 200 hours of work went into making the fan by Maison Lesage, under the supervision of interior architect Sybille de Margerie whose other work is displayed in many of the hotel rooms.
Bar 8 is a chic evening cocktail spot, designed to create a feeling of water and movement with shimmering metal details running from ceiling to floor. The wood walls are inlaid Lalique crystals to give the impression of rain drops and clever lighting makes the area glisten beautifully. This area opens onto the courtyard where you can enjoy champagne in the candlelit garden.
Whilst we didn’t stay at the Mandarin Oriental, a tour of the rooms makes us wish we had! With fourteen different room types there is something for everyone. We were particularly impressed by the Royal Mandarin Suite, at EUR 20,000 per night this is certainly out of most peoples budgets, but it was a stunning look into what it would be like to be a Kardashian!
The hotel offers guests a large spa with indoor pool, the perfect place to relax after a day of shopping. With so many great amenities on offer we will definitely be checking into the Mandarin Oriental on our next trip to Paris!
I was welcomed by the Mandarin Oriental for lunch, as always all opinions expressed are my own.
travel4lifeblog says
Wow your post and your awesome pictures made us want to lick the screen! Lol What a fantastic experience! The macaron and the canelé looks so tasty! Canelé is a speciality from Bordeaux! Thanks for sharing your experience with us! Keep up the great work Becky :)
Patrick and Cécile from http://www.travel4lifeblog.com