A Rooftop Garden for Sustainable Dining at Mercure Paris Boulogne

Discover how a hotel in the heart of Boulogne-Billancourt has become a model for using rooftop gardening to increase sustainability and support farm-to-table dining.

Located near Parc des Princes and Stade Roland Garros in the affluent Parisian suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, Mercure Paris Boulogne is passionate about increasing sustainability by keeping things as local as possible. As part of this ethos, we planted a rooftop garden in 2015; today, this garden produces between 800 kilograms and 1.2 tons of fresh produce a year. Our Head Chef, Johan Thierry, designs the seasonal menu at our artisan Paris restaurant around the garden’s gifts, providing a more flavourful and nutritional experience for our guests. And by cutting down on food miles, we’re also reducing our carbon footprint and discovering many other positive side effects of sourcing ingredients locally. 

The term “farm-to-table” has become increasingly popular in recent years, illustrating the current trend within the restaurant and hotel industries for sourcing ingredients locally. This isn’t a gimmick: it’s a meaningful movement that (if done correctly) can significantly improve the guest experience while also benefiting the environment. First, let’s look at how locally grown produce tends to look and taste better than imported equivalents. That’s because food that doesn’t have to travel hundreds of miles to your plate avoids being frozen, treated with preservatives or harvested before it reaches natural ripeness. It’s fresher, more colourful and more flavourful for dishes, with a richer taste and intensity. Using primarily local produce means cooking with what’s available and adjusting menus seasonally to reflect that – providing a more exciting experience for chefs and for guests who visit a restaurant multiple times throughout the year.

Locally grown food is also better for you. Many types of fruit and vegetables begin to lose their nutritional value the moment they’re harvested – a problem that’s exacerbated by prolonged exposure to air, unnatural storage temperatures and rough handling in transit. The fewer miles your food travels and the quicker it’s consumed, the more vitamins, minerals and antioxidants it contains. Environmentally, fewer food miles translates to a reduced carbon footprint. That’s because you’re eliminating the fossil fuel consumption required to transport ingredients internationally by plane, train or truck. Finally, there are economic advantages to this approach. For hotels, seasonal produce is abundant and therefore more affordable than imported produce. And, by supporting local growers and artisan producers, income is kept within the local community to the benefit of everyone who lives there.

When it comes to sourcing ingredients locally, the best option of all is to grow your own produce. Increasingly, hotels around the world are using rooftop gardens as a way to utilise limited urban space and grow some of the fruits, herbs and vegetables they need for themselves. All of the benefits associated with local produce explained above apply to food grown in rooftop gardens. Other positives include the fact that any green space in an urban area contributes to improved air quality; and that rooftop gardens provide natural noise and heat insulation for the buildings below them. By keeping hotel spaces cooler in summer and warmer in winter, a rooftop garden reduces energy consumption and the financial cost of heating and air conditioning. Rooftop gardens also provide a refuge for wildlife. In particular, they support bird and insect species that in turn aid with pollination and seed dispersal throughout the surrounding area.

Every year between May and October, the hidden rooftop garden at Mercure Paris Boulogne produces roughly a ton of fruit, herbs and vegetables including cucumbers, tomatoes, aubergines and strawberries. These are harvested by hotel staff for use in the kitchen, making the cuisine served at Boulogne-Billancourt restaurant Le 16.9e and rooftop bar Le Seven Up as local as physically possible. Visit in summer, and you may even be able to purchase punnets of surplus strawberries for postcard-perfect Seine picnics. Head Chef Johan Thierry is passionate about using locally grown, artisan produce and also about reducing food waste. Growing many of our ingredients on site means being able to harvest exactly what we need and nothing more, in accordance with daily demand.

The bounty of our rooftop garden can be sampled at Le 16.9e, your local restaurant in Paris for daily breakfasts and weekday lunches and dinners. Amid decor inspired by Boulogne-Billancourt’s cinematic heritage, Thierry combines homegrown fruit and vegetables with produce from the surrounding area. From the meat to the pasta and yoghurt, the use of traceable, seasonal, local ingredients has earned the restaurant the prestigious Maître Restaurateur label. Our regularly changing menus draw inspiration from Thierry’s global travels, with a particular focus on classic French dishes reinvented with an Asian twist. Enjoy gourmet creations ranging from marinated prawn risotto to veal tataki served with fragrant noodles in the light-filled dining room, on the covered veranda or out in the sunshine on the peaceful terrace.

Our Paris hotel with a rooftop bar also offers guests the opportunity to sample sharing plates with a view at Le Seven Up. Open from May to September, this elegant space on the seventh floor is split between a chic seating area and a raised deck with a heated swimming pool. It’s a favoured venue for private parties but also opens once a week to the public. On these special summer evenings, guests can mingle with local professionals gathering for a sophisticated aperitif after work; savour platters of local cheese and charcuterie; or sip signature cocktails while listening to chilled out live music and DJ sets. Keep an eye out for collaborations with local chateaux and microbreweries too. With views over the vegetable garden towards the neighbouring TF1 Tower, this is suburban Paris after dark at its most enchanting.