Bel-Etage

The perfect floor is somewhere in-between, it’s neither the ground floor nor the first floor, it’s neither one nor the other – it floats between the two, as if hesitating. And we paused here because Fabrice Vuillemin’s le Bel-Etage is anything but a place of approximation. In creating his Bel-Etage a few years ago, he decided to do the gourmet thing his way. It’s he who welcomes you, he does the cooking, he chats to you and he serves you. He’s a one-man band performing all the tasks that make up a great restaurant where every table is the host’s table, where every guest can witness the smallest gesture of a chef who has evolved into a jack-of-all-trades and yet able to master them all.
In the kitchen Fabrice is liberated, his dishes flirt delicately between sea and land, and he’s free too in his influences, acquired chez Romeyer, chez Bruneau and also at Karmeliet. Bringing together fresh market produce with a controlled imagination, Fabrice pulls off great cooking with finesse.
And just between ourselves, we love the idea of being served at table by the man who prepared the food.