Nomiya is a temporary restaurant installation designed by artist Laurent Grasso atop the Palais de Tokyo, only open till July 2010. It’s set in a glass box with sweeping views of the city and the food concept is almost like a private dinner party, except you share a communal table with like-minded foodie strangers. They only serve 12 people at a time for lunch and dinner and chef Giles Stassart and his team whip up four & five course inventive, modern French meals. With such limited seating, it’s almost impossible to get a reservation, which are only available on line and open up daily exactly for the next 30 days at 12:01AM. I didn’t have the patience to wade through this complicated, unnerving reservation process, so when browsing through the site I saw that you can go on a tour for free.

Nomiya also has cooking classes, so a friend and I came in on the tail end of a kid’s baking class, where they were putting the finishing touches on some yummy chocolate concoction. We climbed the stairs up to the restaurant and before we even entered, we were blown away by the views. It was dusk, so the light was magical. Once inside, the dramatic purple, blue, and pink lighting lit the view in such a romatic way.  Of course the Eiffel Tower took center stage as it always does but the amazing thing was the reflection bouncing off the other side of the window made it look like it was placed in a different spot, like an optical illusion. Try and tell which ones are actually the tower and which are reflections.

13 Ave. du President Wilson, 75016, Metro: Iena, reservations