Whether using tinned sardines to produce sophisticated, avant-garde fine dining as he did at Jade on 36, or using sophisticated, avant-garde techniques to produce the simplest of French and global dishes, as he does at Mr & Mrs Bund, or maximizing both sophisticated, avant-garde techniques and dining immersed by multi-sensory enhancement, as he will at Ultraviolet, this Shanghai-based chef approaches food with an equal lack of prejudice and unbiased opinion. Restaurants, the same.
Pairet first came of notice at Paris's Cafe Mosaic, where the influences of his wandering career – by that point, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Jakarta – began to crystallize into a French-but-not-French style all his own. Critics talked of Mosaic and of Alain Ducasse's Spoon in equal terms. In fact, Pairet’s cooking at Mosaic made such an impression on Ducasse that it was the master chef himself who subsequently plucked Pairet out and arranged his next move: Istanbul. Pairet then took his talents to the Ritz-Carlton's Cam, where he turned the hotel outfit into the city's first cutting-edge restaurant. He was to repeat the task in Shanghai.
Pairet came to the city in 2005 to open Jade on 36, the flagship restaurant of the Shangri- La group's flagship hotel, the Pudong Shangri-La. In three years, he staked out an international reputation for his highly personal and completely original cuisine: often exaggerated, highly technical plays on texture, temperature, and preconceived expectations Where he had formed the vocabulary – surprise, precision, wit, reduction – at Mosaic and Cam, the years at Jade on 36 saw him develop these into a fluent, singular cuisine that spoke on many levels. Pairet’s food started conversations, inspired articles and collected awards. Jade on 36 became not another hotel restaurant, but a beacon for sophisticated, avant-garde cuisine in Asia, and a destination for many.
Cooking a cuisine designed, in part, to provoke and challenge, Pairet elicited ecstatic guest response from the moment Jade on 36 opened in late 2005. The sentiment that the restaurant's food was both exceptionally unique and essentially delicious echoed in local media. Shanghai diners were just as quick to embrace it. The restaurant went to scoop numerous honors and awards in Shanghai’s publications, while Pairet’s cuisine was profiled internationally.
Regional press quickly followed: Singapore's DestinAsian magazine called Pairet’s dishes “challenging, elegant and, above all, things that you'd want to eat over and over again.” By the time food critic Andrea Petrini came from France, in 2008, to spend a week profiling the restaurant, Pairet had built up such a following and repertoire of cuisine that Petrini’s resulting report declared, “If he had stayed in France, Paul Pairet would probably be, by far, the leader of contemporary cuisine.” Indeed, Petrini picked up on the wave of conservatism in French culinary custom that does not extend to Pairet's cooking.And good thing, too, if international accolades are any indication. It is precisely Pairet’s rejection of rigid culinary convention that has won over gourmands the world over. Malaysia’s Flavours magazine deemed Pairet 'an intriguing artist who calls himself a chef'. Singapore’s Appetite described his food as 'creative, delicious and ever so subtly reforming perceptions of the food on our plate', and its September 2008 issue on culinary trailblazers named Pairet as one of six Asia-based chefs – and the solitary nominee from Shanghai – to watch. Canada’s Globe and Mail raved he 'cooks like a dream' and one critic from The Times (UK) vowed that for her last meal, nothing but Pairet’s food will suffice. Need we go on?
Recent years have seen Pairet circle the earth to present his unique vision at gatherings of the world's culinary heavyweights. From San Sebastian's Lo Mejor de la Gastronomia (The Best of Gastronomy) in 2007 and Madrid Fusion in 2008 – where, at both, Pairet was the sole Asia-based chef invited to speak – the World Gourmet Summit 2008 in Singapore, which saw him present a culinary master class, to the participation in December 2009 in the most acknowledged and cosmopolitan “Guest Chef Concept” by Ikarus of Hanger-7, Salzburg, Austria, Pairet continues to challenge the possibilities of what food can be. The latest grand occasion joined by this award-winning chef is 2010’s OFF5 Deauville French Omnivore Food Festival.
In April 2009, Mr & Mrs Bund, a modern French eatery perched on Shanghai’s historic Bund, is a different expression of the chef’s passion. The theme this time is simplicity and popularity, a democratic flourish that embraces French favourites and classics. Pairet has never been two things: 1. A stranger to simple, popular dishes, and 2. Easy to classify. With Mr & Mrs Bund, soon Pairet has tailored a populist concept of sharing simple & well-executed dishes to both critical and popular success. It is French, in the way Pairet himself is French -- born, traveled, globally stamped, and stubbornly perfectionist.
A u-turn for the "avant-garde" chef?
Only until Ultraviolet opens – an exciting, ground-breaking dining concept, a project which Pairet has conceived for over 10 years. With its finally taking root in Shanghai, Pairet and his team are working on this world-exclusive, 10-seat restaurant, where all lights, sounds, smell and atmosphere are tailored and choreographed to enhance and interact with each course, and to launch it in the autumn of 2010.