Mandarin Oriental Paris is a stunning, sleek hotel found in one of the toniest shopping and sightseing neighborhoods in Paris. The Mandarin Oriental is one of my favorite luxury hotel brands to visit and stay with whenever possible (as seen from my travels to Asia and Boston).
This time around we dropped by for pre-dinner drinks and snacks at Bar 8 at their zen-like courtyard after passing though their glamourous and futuristic lobby and dark, chic bar with an eye catching marble bar.
We started off with cocktails of Rosemary Fizz (27€) and 251 with Hennessy XO (53€) served with an addictive bowl of roasted large cashews with rosemary and green olives. Our drnks were delicious and dangerously quaffable. The fizz was a beautiful egg white cocktail that’s balanced between the herbaceous gin, Limoncello, rosemary syrup, and crème fraîche — smooth, creamy and enough acidity. My 251 was pretty mindblowing as a Cognac cocktail can go. The cocktail softly hit my palate with Hennessy XO’s caramel, warm spiced flavors and it rounded out by the gently floral, sweet rooftop honey.
When our tapas, as the staff calls it, is a random assortment of small plates that are generally inspired by Asian cuisine that has some potential to be tastier. The large pair of fried gambas (16€) set over a small bowl of avocado puree with grapefruit cubes was generally a good idea but the execution wasn’t good. The large prawns eaten by itself was tasty but it was coated unfortunately with a thick, soggy coating. The tuna and focaccia (16€) is a plate of sliced, grilled tuna belly and on top of toasted focaccia, which was fine but it needed a sauce to make this a cohesive canapé. The dim sum (22€) is a six-piece set of dumplings served in a steam basket filled with various fillings that may contain pork, chicken and vegetables – was decent.
To sum up the visit to Bar 8, stay for the amazing, sophisticated atmosphere, gracious service, and delicious cocktails.
To view more photos of this visit, please CLICK HERE for the set of view the gallery below:
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Mandarin Oriental Paris
Website
251 rue Saint-Honoré
Paris, 75001
France
Phone: +33 (0)1 70 98 78 88
