Red mullet from the coast. Plum kombucha. Citrus oil. Hazelnut. That’s the line I stopped at while reading a menu from Le Louis XV – Alain Ducasse, the restaurant inside Monaco’s Hôtel de Paris. The kitchen lists the fish both plain and charred in the same dish. I kept thinking about those two bites. Would I reach for the plain one first, or go straight for the char? Le Louis XV menu
By Lizza Zikkina · Tales of Interest
One fish, two ways
Red mullet has a distinctive flavour, so I like the idea of giving it two treatments on the same plate. The plain preparation gives you a reference point. Then the char brings a roasted edge to the next bite. On paper, the plum kombucha is what makes me curious. I’d expect its acidity to sharpen the contrast, with the citrus oil carrying the aroma into the next bite. The menu names hazelnut, too, and leaves its role for the diner to discover.
That’s a question I’d take back to my own kitchen. When an ingredient already has a strong character, how much do you want to change it? Serving it two ways lets you try something bolder while keeping a bite that shows where you started.
A kitchen with its feet on the coast
Le Louis XV returned to The 50 Best Restaurants at No. 47 in the 2026 ranking unveiled in Lima on 4 November. Alain Ducasse opened the restaurant in 1987, and his early Jardins de Provence menu put vegetables at the centre of the table. Today, executive chef Emmanuel Pilon changes the menus with the seasons, drawing on the produce of the Riviera. The 50 Best restaurant profile · Lima announcement
Le Louis XV is also one of Monaco’s most expensive tables. The restaurant lists its Agape tasting menu at €420 per person before drinks. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime dinner for many of us, and I can see the appeal. There’s something special about setting aside a whole evening for a kitchen working at that level. Le Louis XV dining guide
But if you ask where we’d go on our night off, we’d probably pick a little bistro. Somewhere the owner pulls up a chair to tell us what came in that morning, and we order another basket of bread because there’s still sauce on the plate. The top ten can have the chandeliers. We’ll happily stay for the bread. 😉
I like that a fish from the coast can sit at the centre of a dish with fermented plum and still tell you where you are. There’s room in a regional kitchen for an idea that would have looked out of place on the menu a generation ago. The part I’d want to get right is that first forkful of fish. It has to make you curious enough to try the second.
Lizza
