Marcel Ravin’s “Ritual of the 5 Elements” runs every Wednesday at Blue Bay until 28 October. Around ten small courses that change week to week, €180 a head before drinks, and a four-glass pairing at €95 if you want it. The autumn run began on 2 September; today is the third Wednesday of it.
The operator’s listing gives the full shape of the year: “Every Wednesday from 11 March to 24 June 2026, and then from 2 September to 28 October 2026.” A summer gap in the middle, the Grand Prix period excluded from the price. So this is not a menu you can walk in and order on a Friday.
The day is the booking.
Blue Bay holds two Michelin stars, the first won in 2015 and the second in the 2022 guide, and the restaurant took the chef’s name when it reopened in February 2024. The Wednesday menu is one expression of that kitchen, not a separately starred concept.
A tasting menu with room to change
It started on 11 March. Paris Côte d’Azur reported a different menu each week, “une dizaine de petites bouchées” on the theme of the five elements, built on the philosophy of kaiseki. Ravin was explicit about what that borrowing is and is not: “This menu does not seek to reproduce a tradition, but to respect its spirit: that of balance, time and meaning.” Japanese influence, he said, meeting “my Creole roots and Mediterranean light”.
That matters at the table. Five elements is an organising idea rather than a promise of five courses, and about ten bites in March tells you nothing exact about a Wednesday in October.
The appeal is meeting a kitchen in a less fixed form, which suits a guest content to let somebody else decide the order of the evening and frustrates anybody who travelled specifically to eat one dish they had seen in a photograph and have been thinking about since.
Nobody should print tonight’s sequence from an old photograph, ourselves included. Ask for the current one when you book, and say early if anybody at the table has a restriction that would unpick a fixed menu.
The Caribbean thread belongs to the chef
Ravin grew up in Bitaille, in Martinique, and the restaurant describes its cooking as a blend between his native island and the Mediterranean shore outside. Fruit and vegetables come from the hotel’s organic kitchen garden, and the fish follows the Mr Goodfish charter. That is a more useful introduction than the word fusion.
Our reason to book it would be to follow that voice across a whole dinner.
The room supplies the occasion. The plates supply the reason to be in it.
Which is also why we would keep the rest of the night empty. A sequence built by the kitchen deserves the attention, and it does not survive being squeezed between two other commitments. Two people can build a short stay around it. Six people who came mainly to talk would be happier ordering à la carte somewhere else.
What the €180 price includes
The published figures are exact, and so is one exclusion: “Set menu at €180 per person excluding beverages”, the wine pairing “€95 per person” for four glasses, and the whole thing withdrawn during the Monaco Grand Prix period. Book the ritual by name; a general table will not get you it.
| Choice | Per guest |
|---|---|
| Five Elements menu, drinks excluded | €180 |
| Optional wine pairing, four glasses | €95 |
| Menu plus that pairing | €275 |
The last line is arithmetic rather than a quotation. Two people taking both reach €550 before an aperitif, a bottle beyond the pairing, or water. A shared bottle instead of two pairings changes the shape of the bill considerably.
None of which makes €180 a bargain justified by two stars.
Compare it against the other evenings your party would genuinely enjoy, and against how much attention each one asks of the table.
The ritual is not La Table de Marcel
Blue Bay runs a second thing entirely, and the two get confused constantly. La Table de Marcel is a chef’s table seating eight, with a menu described by the hotel group as running to twenty movements, served Tuesday to Saturday. No price for it is published anywhere.
A Wednesday booking buys none of that. No private room, no exclusive table, no audience with Ravin. When privacy is the point of the evening, name La Table de Marcel when you write and ask for its current terms.
Have that conversation before the invitations go out.
A tasting menu for two and a private dinner for eight clients are different briefs sharing one address.
The dates, and a correction worth making
Some coverage has given 16 September as the autumn return date, including an earlier version of this page. The operator’s own listing does not support it: the run resumed on 2 September and ends on 28 October, and 16 September is simply the third Wednesday within it. Match your travel dates to the published window rather than to a return date.
We have checked no availability. Confirm the ritual by name, ask whether the menu suits everyone coming, and get the deposit and cancellation terms in writing, since none are published. Staying at the hotel does not reserve you a seat.
The best plan here is pleasantly narrow. One dinner, chosen carefully, with enough time at the table and nothing booked afterwards.
The Luxury.it perspective
What we like about this format is how honest its limits are. The kitchen publishes a price, a day and a window, then reserves the right to change the food every week. You are buying a chef’s judgement for one evening, which is a clearer transaction than most tasting menus offer.
The Kaiseki reference could have been embarrassing. Ravin defused it himself by saying the menu respects the spirit of a tradition rather than reproducing it, and by naming Martinique and the Mediterranean in the same breath. That is the right register for a Monaco dining room borrowing from Kyoto.
Our advice: take the pairing only if four glasses genuinely suit the table, because €95 each is a firm number against a sequence nobody can describe to you in advance. A bottle chosen with the sommelier may serve the evening better.
Related guides
Our Monaco hotel edit helps place the evening inside a stay.
