Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet is a single-table restaurant in Shanghai, China, opened in May 2012 by French chef Paul Pairet and the VOL Group.
Ultraviolet was ranked the 8th best restaurant in Asia by Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list in both 2013 and 2014, and the 60th best restaurant in the world in 2013, and the 58th in 2014.
In 2015: No. 3 in Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, and No. 24 in The World's 50 Best Restaurants.
In 2016: No. 7 in Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, and No. 42 in The World's 50 Best Restaurants.
In 2017: No. 8 in Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, and No. 41 in The World's 50 Best Restaurants. On September 21 2017, the second edition of Michelin Guide Shanghai released the result for 2018, and Ultraviolet received three Michelin stars, after its two stars in the first edition.
Since October 2014 Ultraviolet became one of the restaurant members of Les Grandes Tables du Monde, the first restaurant in this organization from China.
Billed as the first multi-sensory restaurant in the world, Ultraviolet uses sight, sound and smell to enhance the food through a controlled and tailored atmosphere. The restaurant has a single table of 10 seats and serves a single 20+ course dinner menu for ten guests each night.
The dining room of Ultraviolet is ascetic with no décor, no artifacts, no paintings, and no views. It is a purpose-built room specifically equipped with multi-sensory high-end technology such as dry scent projectors, stage and UV lighting, 360 degree wall projection, table projectors, beam speakers and a multichannel speaker system. Each course of the menu is dressed-up by lights, sounds, music, and /or scents, and enhanced with its own tailored atmosphere to provide context for the dish’s taste.
Ultraviolet originally evolved from Pairet’s desire to reduce the technical constraints of the traditional restaurant, which is organized to provide “a la carte” service. This type of organization requires preparation methods that Pairet considers “sub-standard”.