Famed Paris restaurant that inspired Disney smash hit Ratatouille ‘loses’ £1.28m worth of wine
29 January 2024, 14:36
An iconic Paris restaurant which hosted Queen Elizabeth II and was the inspiration for the smash hit animation Ratatouille has called in police after losing more than €1.5m (£1.28m) worth of wine.
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Staff at La Tour D’Argent found dozens of bottles were missing from its wine cellar during a routine inventory.
The theft would have taken place at some time between January 2020 and January 2024.
The restaurant, which boasts a sixth-floor dining room with sweeping views of Notre-Dame cathedral, has a wine cellar with some 300,000 bottles.
There were no signs of a break in to the cellar, according to French news outlet Le Parisien.
Among the missing bottles were wines from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti renowned for producing some of the world’s greatest wines, which can often sell for tens of thousands of pounds.
Read more: Boris Johnson's booze bill for Brexit bash at No10 revealed after two-year legal battle
A 1999 bottle from the producer sells at around £24,000 according to some estimates.
The restaurant underwent a major renovation in 2022 and re-opened late last summer.
It boasts a wine ‘bible’ so heavy that it has to be wheeled out to customers on a trolley.
The restaurant was an inspiration for the 2007 film Ratatouille, which tells the story of a rat who achieves his dreams of becoming a chef at a famous eatery in the French capital.
