In the summer of 2003, just prior to making my first visit to L’Ambroisie, the three-star Michelin restaurant on the Place des Vosges in Paris, I came across an article in which its chef-owner, Bernard Pacaud, was quoted as saying that the first visit to his establishment was seldom the most successful one – that he and the client needed time to get to know one another.

I found his remark extraordinary. Here was a chef charging €200 a head or more and admitting that guests new to his restaurant often left disappointed. While I appreciated his candour, I was put off by his ­matter-of-factness and by the implicit suggestion that only those willing to shell out for multiple visits could expect to find satisfaction. It seemed to me that if the first experience of L’Ambroisie was often a let-down, Pacaud was failing his customers.

Did the chef’s comment colour my first experience of L’Ambroisie? Not really. I certainly did not walk into the restaurant expecting to walk out unhappy. And I did not leave entirely displeased: the food was excellent, though not quite as good as I had hoped.

However, the virtuosity in the kitchen was overshadowed by the almost funereal ambience. With its high ceilings, tapestry-draped stone walls and dim lighting, the dining room was spectacular but it was a frigid sort of beauty – and the robotic, joyless service lowered the temperature to what felt like a deep freeze. I did not need the staff to entertain me but a smile here and there, a bit of light conversation, and some genuine warmth would have been welcome. None was forthcoming and it made for an uncomfortable lunch.

Yet, rather perversely, the experience left me not so much chagrined as intrigued. I found it impossible to cross off the restaurant as an egregious waste of time and money. It is not that I doubted my own judgment but I knew of the loyalty L’Ambroisie commands among Parisian gastronomes and of the respect it enjoys among French chefs and restaurateurs. What did they see in L’Ambroisie that I did not? Maybe Pacaud was simply telling the truth – maybe his restaurant, for whatever reason, really did require two visits. So, with some trepidation, I decided to pay it a second visit.

And pay one does at L’Ambroisie. Even by the gilded standards of Michelin three-stars, Pacaud’s prices are jaw-dropping. The bill for my lunch, which consisted of an appetizer, main course, dessert, half-bottle of the unremarkable 1994 Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste, two bottles of Evian and an espresso, was €294. And this is a restaurant that expects to be revisited if the first visit is not up to par?

But this time, at least, the food lived up to expectations. In fact, it was staggeringly good. I have had a few meals that were the equal of the meal I had at L’Ambroisie; I have certainly never had a better meal. Pacaud practices a very straightforward cuisine meant, above all, to showcase the pristine quality of the ingredients. But it is a supremely refined cooking that achieves a purity of flavour that has to be tasted to be believed.

For my first course, I went with one of Pacaud’s signature dishes, langoustines in a curry sauce. This was essentially a langoustine mille-feuille, with chunks of meat resting on a bed of spinach and sandwiched between two paper-thin sesame wafers. Although the dish was perhaps less than the sum of its parts, the parts were so delicious it scarcely mattered. The curry sauce, composed of hazelnut butter, cream and curry, was an enthralling amalgam of contradictions – light in texture but rich in flavour, the spiciness subtle but remarkably persistent.

The main course was carré d’agneau – two double ribs of baby lamb from the Lozère, each with a gorgeous sheath of fat. The quality of the meat was impeccable but it was the jus that boggled the mind. This light, translucent liquid had a flavour so rich and profound that I began to suspect there was an optical illusion involved – I have never experienced a greater disconnect between what my eyes were telling me and what my mouth was reporting.

The day’s showstopper, however, was the side dish, which consisted of a half-dozen or so pieces of Jerusalem artichoke bathed in a light cream sauce and topped with shards of white truffle. How good was it? Let me put it this way: when a busboy tried to remove the bowl before I had mopped up the last of the sauce, he very nearly got his wrist broken.

Lunch ended with another Pacaud specialty, his chocolate tart with vanilla ice- cream. Here, too, another paradox: the tart was so light and airy that a stiff breeze could have lifted it into the next arrondissement yet it somehow packed a deeper, more intense flavour than the richest, densest chocolate cake.

As was the case during my first visit, Pacaud never appeared in the dining room and the service was just as stiff. In fact, it was so regimented that at points I found myself, rather cruelly, scanning the room for errors. (The only faux pas was the fashion one at the table adjacent to mine – a woman in sneakers and a T-shirt). As I sat there pondering this odd conjunction of exhilarating food and deadening atmosphere, the phrase gastronomic temple came to mind. It is one of the food world’s most overused expressions but in this instance the cliché really did apply. There was something sanctuary-like about L’Ambroisie – a solemn splendor that imposed quiet reflection on all who entered. This was not a restaurant for people who want a circus with their meal. It is a place best enjoyed by those who are truly, obsessively serious about food, because the food is pretty much the whole of the experience. That said, it is food that deserves to be worshipped.

The following night, prior to dinner service, I returned to L’Ambroisie to interview Pacaud. A compact 59-year-old who, amazingly for a top chef, looks younger than his age, he greeted me with a perfunctory nod and beckoned me into one of the dining rooms. As I pulled out my notebook he informed me that he seldom granted interviews because he is “mistrustful of journalists”. Pacaud then gave me a thumbnail account of his career. He started at the legendary La Mère Brazier in Lyon, then moved to Paris at the age of 20 and worked for the late Claude Peyrot at the three-star Vivarois. He opened L’Ambroisie in 1981, in a small space on the Left Bank. By 1983 the restaurant had already won a second Michelin star. In 1986 Pacaud took his knives across the Seine to the Place des Vosges; two years later he was awarded a third star.

We talked about his culinary style. He unhesitatingly categorized it as classic: “Very pure, not too busy.” I asked him why, unlike most of his contemporaries, he had only one restaurant and did no outside consulting. “I am satisfied like this,” he replied. “I am happy this way and I think it’s best for the clients and best for me if I am here.”

But why, then, did his clients never get to see his face? He said timidity was one factor – “I am very shy” – and time-management was another. “If I am in the dining room, I am not in the kitchen. If you give five minutes to each table, it adds up to one hour away from the kitchen and that is not consistent with good cuisine.” In the age of celebrity chefs, this is an attitude so antediluvian it seems almost revolutionary.

Pacaud turned out to be a surprisingly engaging character. And he apparently decided that I was OK for a journalist because he invited me back to the kitchen for an apértif. As we waited for his white wine and my champagne, I asked about his comment regarding maiden visits to L’Ambroisie. Did he really mean what he said? “I think it does take more than one visit to gain an appreciation for a restaurant. Also, there are lots of details that can affect the experience. The client might not be hungry the first time or might not like the table or perhaps had trouble finding a parking spot – c’est la vie, but these things matter. That said, 65-70 per cent of our clients are regulars, which indicates the first experience was a good one for them.”

By now our drinks had arrived. Pacaud raised his glass, offered a santé, took a generous swig, and reached out to shake my hand. “I have to get to work,” he briskly announced. He had been away from his pots and pans too long.

L’Ambroisie: 9 Place  des Vosges, Paris, tel: +33 (0)1-4278 5145. Closed  Sunday and Monday