WHAT'S REALLY NEW ?

Ultraviolet is innovative by essence, an unmatched alternative.

Offering something new is one thing: a new décor, a new chef, a new style of cuisine…
Offering something innovative is something else: innovation supposes no existing alternative. Somehow, it is quite easy to be innovative - being the smallest, the biggest, the most expensive, the cheapest...
Being extreme is enough …
Yet, we all agree, innovation is not a goal, certainly a risk, and is controversial by nature. Innovation for its own sake is meaningless. To be relevant, innovation shall be rooted in need or create a new one.
Ultraviolet doesn't claim to be the world ' s smallest restaurant, the first secretive venue, the most luxurious… Yet,it is certainly one of the most experimental, one of the funniest, one of the most daring, the most everything per guest…

But, that is not where innovation lies.
Above all its features, Ultraviolet's main characteristic is to be the first restaurant to attempt uniting food with multi-sensorial technologies to create a fully immersive dining experience.

Light, projections, sound, music, scent, air flow, temperature are core ingredients of the menu. Ultraviolet's concept is rooted in the need to control the relevance of the random ambiance factor in order to further enhance the dining experience.
And yes you can read it twice.

IS ULTRAVIOLET A DINNER-SHOW ?

Let's make it clear, there is no show as such. Ultraviolet is a restaurant, definitely not Moulin Rouge nor Fantasia.
The best lighting, the appropriate music, the influence of a scent... Ultraviolet offers food enhanced by ambiance, not a show supported by food.
The technology of its dining room is a platform to interact with, and supports the food by controlling timing, atmosphere, and emotion of the whole experience.
The food always leads.

WHY 10 SEATS ONLY ?

The size was imposed to the project for control and intimacy .
Technically, 10 is the perfect numberfor a single plating by the kitchen in prime condition, the best number to share a single bottle of wine on tasting size (7.5 cl being a half glass), to perform and control the synchronization of food and ambiance.
A communal table of ten is best to cheer up the ambiance, yet intimate enough to unite people in their curiosity.
Intimacy and control maximize the best of both a home dinner party, and a professional restaurant.

Historically, this concept existed long before even the first restaurants appeared, in the 18th century.
It is new, but has always been.

IS ULTRAVIOLET PRETENTIOUS ?

Pretension is the worst enemy of this project, and probably the reason that for the first time I felt that I should justify myself ahead through a brochure.

Being experimental does not qualify automatically for pretention, not even for ultra ambitions.
There is a funny edge of innovation, close to humor and humility.
Without indulging in the so-praised gastronomically correctness, we do not forget that, a meal is, above all, about pleasure, food, company and entertainment.
Ultraviolet will hopefully be about doing things seriously without taking oneself too seriously.

15 years of incubation and drive to make this project happen is somewhere my best pledge to state that my deep belief in this project is genuine, and my intentions are pure.
You need balls to assume that you might be ridiculous to some, don't you?

ORIGIN OF ULTRAVIOLET

Fifteen years ago...
In 1996, I was in Australia; I just had closed the restaurant I was heading… sold to a famous Melbournian restaurateur.On the road again.
Food was the only way I could express myself, my single language. I wanted to deliver my own best; I needed to find a way to speak.
The goal was to eradicate the constraints that a traditional "A La Carte" restaurant's system imposes… I needed to shift control.
I had in mind to make something small, very personal, home feel in professional hands… a revival of the 17th century table d'hôte.
Like at home, I'll pick the time, pick the menu... set the music, spark off the light:
I would grow a beard, set a table of 12, call it "the last supper…"
In controlling the offer, I would master the cooking, trigger the ambiance; match, contradict, and influence one another.
Beethoven and candlelight on a carved short rib anyone?

But life took me somewhere else.

In 15 years, I have come close to opening this small table project 3 times. The closest was with Baccarat and Jean Louis Costes in Paris… but that's history. Finally it is Shanghai.
When you look at Ultraviolet today, the core of the project remains the same, although everything has been pushed to the extreme. The technology, the tools, the staff, the experimentation…
Paul Pairet

THE "A LA CARTE" CONSTRAINTS

The overwhelming majority of modern, high-end restaurants operate on the a la carte system. They are organized around the principle of answering efficiently to their customers' choices:
What time would you like to come? How many people? What would you like for your entrée? …Wine?
She will have the duck and the "frisée aux lardons". He will have the sole, but no sauce, and no entrée…

The only way for a kitchen to be able to deliver any dishes' combination in a short set time frame to a dining room full of hungry and demanding customers making their own choices, is preparation.
What chefs call "Mise en Place": a comprehensive integration of groundwork so that dishes may simply be "finished" to order.
This overarching organization can be a hallmark of a modern kitchen, a triumph of ingenuity that allows a small team of chefs to cook a wide range of dishes.
But the "a la carte" framework, as ingenuously built as it could be is always a lesser experience. It supposes constant speculation balancing quality and preservation.
How many dishes should be integrated? How far? Shall we cook the asparagus just a few minutes before being served, taking the risk to loose control when the kitchen becomes too busy?

It was not always like this.
17th and 18th century table d'hôte, precursor to the modern restaurant, as one might look at it, worked like a home kitchen: everyone sat down at a communal tale, and ate the same thing.
There are advantages to the table d'hôte. The primary one is control of time, choice and quantity, otherwise said: quality.
When you master the timing, you master the cuisine in a different way, delivering dishes to their best.
Very much so like Ultraviolet, a new concept that existed centuries ago.