Trente-Trois, a discreet Michelin-starred restaurant hidden away in the Maison Villeroy hotel

To unlock the secret of the confidential Trente-Trois restaurant, you need to enter the equally discreet Maison Villeroy hotel, just off the Champs-Elysées. Like this pocket palace, with just eleven rooms and apartments in the style of a private home, the restaurant reveals just a few covers at lunch and dinner, in the intimate wood-panelled dining room of the boutique-hotel.

Orchestrated by chef Sébastien Sanjou, Trente-Trois was awardeda Michelin star in January 2021. However, the lunch menu is designed to be affordable, with a starter/main course or main course/dessert menu at €60 and a starter/main course/dessert menu at €75. For lunch and dinner, guests can also opt for longer menus, in 4 courses (110€) and 6 courses (140€).

Behind the stoves, chef Jonathan Rubat composes a classic but well-executed French cuisine that follows the rhythm of the seasons. A trio of amuse-bouches in the form of tartlets start the dance: pea tartlet with buckwheat slivers; puffed rice tart, mimosa egg, onion and olive pickles; carrot tart, hazelnut slivers and parmesan.

Then there's green asparagus from Provence, which we'd have liked more generous, with sorrel, ewe's milk and a candied egg yolk; Roscoff crab, shelled on a bed of minty peas and covered with a delicate crab jelly; asparagus (white, from Ventoux) with iodized béarnaise and shellfish; andsuckling lamb from the Pyrenees, for a meaty note, accompanied by wild garlic, fava beans and pommes grenaille.

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There's no doubt that asparagus and fresh peas are well and truly in season, as are rhubarb and strawberries, which express themselves respectively in a dessert with burrata and hibiscus, and in the other, with an association that works wonders - bell bell pepper, burrata and basil.

Before the sweet stuff (which is just the right amount of sweet), let's take a trip to Martine Dubois' farmhouse cheeses, including a Trappe Échourgnac with a wonderful nutty flavor.