La Tour d'Argent
La Tour d'Argent is a historic restaurant on the Quai de la Tournelle in Paris, overlooking the Seine and Notre-Dame. It is best known for its pressed duck, the canard à la presse, and for a very large wine cellar.
History
The restaurant claims it was founded in 1582 and frequented by Henri IV, but it offers no documentation for these claims. What is documented is that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was run by Frédéric Delair, who began the custom of giving each diner who ate the pressed duck a numbered certificate.
The Terrail family took over the restaurant in 1912 and has run it across several generations since. A branch opened in Tokyo in 1984, and in 2023 the premises were renovated to a design by the architect Franklin Azzi.
Culture
The duck is its signature. The restaurant raises its own birds, and each order comes with a postcard bearing the bird's serial number, a ritual that is part of the evening. Among those who received one were Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marlene Dietrich and Charlie Chaplin. The wine cellar, guarded around the clock, holds more than 450,000 bottles, offered through a list of some 15,000 wines over 400 pages. Its wider fame grew with Pixar's Ratatouille, whose scenes drew on the restaurant.
Legend and fact
The restaurant is credited with a founding in 1582 and a visit from Henri IV, but no documentation supports this. Nineteenth-century guides describe it as a modest establishment in an out-of-the-way area, which sits uneasily with the royal image often attached to it.