Ratatouille restaurant ‘loses’ wine worth more than £1m

A RESTAURANT that inspired the film Ratatouille and hosted Queen Elizabeth II has reportedly ‘lost’ wine worth more than €1.5million (£1.275 million).

Dozens of bottles were identified as missing from La Tour d’argent’s Paris wine cellar, which boasts some 300,000 offerings, including some that date from pre-revolution France, the Le Parisien newspaper reported.

The restaurant, famed for its signature pressed duck dish and sixth-floor dining room, which offers sweeping views of Notre-dame Cathedral, was said to have called in police this month after discovering the loss during a routine inventory check. It is believed that the theft was carried out between Jan 2020 and Jan 2024 – but the cellar showed no signs of a break-in, according to the newspaper.

Wines from Domaine de la Romanéeconti (DRC), a Burgundy estate renowned for producing some of the world’s finest and most expensive vintages, were missing. Its wines often sell for five-figure sums. A 1999 DRC Grand Cru is being offered online retailers for around €28,000 (£24,000).

It is not the first time La Tour d’argent’s wine cellar has been raided. When the Nazis invaded Paris on June 14 1940 then-owner Claude Terrail built a wall to conceal his best vintages.

The restaurant underwent a major renovation in 2022 and reopened late last summer. As part of its reopening, it compiled a ‘wine bible’, listing the contents of its cellars in a tome weighing 8kg that has to be wheeled to diners’ tables on a trolley.

Though it is often described as the oldest restaurant in Paris, with a history that dates back to 1582, some historians have accused it of failing to provide evidence to support the claim. They argue that it did not exist as a place to dine out until the 18th century.

There is no dispute, however, that the restaurant rose to fame in the 19th century for its canard au sang, or bloody duck, dish – for which the bird’s carcass crushed in a duck press and the resultant juices turned into an unctuous sauce used to accompany the meat.

Diners who order it receive a certificate with a unique serial number.

Over the years, La Tour d’argent has served of heads of state, A-list celebrities and the world’s royals, including the then Prince of Wales and Elizabeth II, who dined at the restaurant in 1948. Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, Salvador Dalí, John Travolta, Steven Spielberg, Bill Clinton and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have also dined there.

The restaurant also inspired Ratatouille, the 2007 animated movie about a young rat who achieves his dream of becoming a chef at a famous eatery in the French capital.