L’Atelier Robuchon Taipei : Two Michelin Star NT$2,080 (S$85) Lunch Menu

The L’Atelier Robuchon Taipei has a NT$2,080 lunch menu on weekdays. At the prevailing exchange rate. that worked out to about S$85 to have lunch in a posh two Michelin Star restaurant. It was an easy decision to make a lunch reservation there during our recent visit to Taiwan.

2 Michelin Star Restaurant in Bellavita Mall Taipei

The restaurant is located on level 5 of the Bellavita Mall in the Xinyi District of Taipei City,
Xinyi District. This is a prime location in the city with many high buildings and shopping malls. Our lunch at Sinchao Rice Shoppe which we wrote about recently was in a neighbouring mall. Among the many malls, Bellavita Mall stands out with its unique architecture. With a large indoor atrium encased under a huge skylight, this place looked palatial.

Joël Robuchon Restaurants

Joël Robuchon International (JRI) is the holding company that runs the Joël Robuchon restaurant empire. According to its website, the restaurant group has 12 unique restaurant concepts that have earned a total of 23 Michelin stars across 14 countries. In Singapore we used to have a 3 Michelin Star Joël Robuchon restaurant at Resorts World Sentosa (picture below). But that has closed down.

Joël Robuchon restaurant at Resorts World Sentosa Singapore

L’Atelier Robuchon Taipei French Restaurant

The restaurant was decked out in red and black colours. The L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon Hong Kong also has a similar style of decor but the Taipei one felt even darker. But our eyes soon adjusted and the details of the furnishings revealed themselves. Once we acclimatised, the place felt posh and luxurious.

There are many counter seats for those who prefer watching the chefs in action. Tables are also available for those who prefer a more traditional style of dining.

NT$2,080 Lunch Menu at L’Atelier Robuchon Taipei

There were a few set menus to choose from priced from Menu A NT$2,080, Menu B $2,880 and Menu C $3,880. The higher priced menu enables the diner to choose more items in each course from those on the set menu. We selected the most affordable $2,080 weekday lunch that allows for an amuse bouche, one appetiser, one main, one dessert and coffee / tea.

Diners can choose from this list of appetisers, main courses and desserts. Some choices require an additional payment. Being ordinary patrons without expense accounts, we limited ourselves to those items that do not require an extra top-up.

L’Atelier Robuchon Taipei Wine List

Of course no Michelin Star lunch at a top French restaurant would be complete without some French wines. A short wine by the glass menu was available at L’Atelier Robuchon Taipei. In keeping with our humble lunch menu choice we also opted for a two-glass wine pairing for NT$1580.

Bread, Amuse Bouche and Beaujolais

Compared to what was served at Joel Robuchon Singapore and L’Atelier Robuchon HK, the bread basket at the Taipei branch was rather basic. But quite reasonable considering the price of our lunch. The amuse bouche was a cup of complex tasting broth.

At about this time the first of our wine pairing wines was served. A chardonnay from Beaujolais. We always assumed Beaujolais only had red one but we were wrong. This Beaujolais blanc was actually good – Burgundy-like.

Lunch at L’Atelier Robuchon Taipei – Appetisers

For our starters we selected a cold appetiser – veal carpaccio (picture above) and a warm vichyssoise.

Both were beautifully presented and tasted as good as they look. The carpaccio was a blast of flavours from the combination of veal with the anchovy and tuna sauce. The warm vichyssoise was a rich classic French soup which, according to my internet search, was made by sautéing leeks and onions in butter and cooking them with potatoes in chicken stock and heavy cream.

The Main Courses

The second wine was served ahead of the main courses. The Le C de Calon Segur (a third wine of the chateau Calon Segur) performed beyond expectations.

Our choices for main course were lamb chop and lamb shoulder confit with coco bean stew and beltfish in crispy rice souffle with artichoke barigoule and chorizo coulis.

I need to simply say that both were very delicious but quite small. Now we see why there are options from two main courses. Each of us could easily eat both of these in one sitting.

Desserts and Coffee

This part of the lunch was not as spectacular as the preceding courses. The desserts were pretty but with rather predictable flavours. We were happy that coffee was included as part of the meal. The additional petite fours were an unexpected bonus!