Profile | Why a Michelin-star French restaurant in Paris serves a congee-inspired dish on its plant-forward menu
- Chef Manon Fleury champions producers at her Michelin-star restaurant Datil in Paris, where she serves a rice porridge dish based on Chinese congee
- She explains how, despite Datil abutting a Chinatown, it was working in the US that inspired the dish, and also talks about hiring mainly female kitchen staff
The 3rd arrondissement in Paris is home to the French capital’s smallest Chinatown – a network of streets close to the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers – where a community with roots in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, have come together.
On the edge of this district, close to a Chinese hairdressers, on 13 Rue des Gravilliers, is 33-seater French restaurant Datil.
This is where 33-year-old chef-owner Manon Fleury works closely with local producers to serve a plant-forward menu, which includes a dish inspired by congee, or Chinese rice porridge. Which makes it all the more surprising when you learn that just six months after opening, in September 2023, Datil received its first Michelin star.
The origin story of Fleury’s unexpected dish dates back to 2015, when she went to the United States to work at the acclaimed Blue Hill at Stone Barns with chef Dan Barber.
“He does conceptual dishes and had a course called ‘Rotation Risotto’, which explains the rotation of crops in the fields,” says Fleury. “This was the first time I understood that a dish served in a restaurant could be delicious, yet at the same time be political, teach and tell a story about what is happening in agriculture.”