New restaurant in Eiffel Tower

PARIS (Reuters) - French top chef Alain Ducasse takes his cooking to new heights on Saturday as he opens a restaurant on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, at 125 meters (410 feet) above ground.

The Jules Verne restaurant was refurbished over four months by architect Patrick Jouin. Special glass was used to enable diners to see the view even when dark and the lights were on in the room.

Ducasse, who heads a range of restaurants around the world and has garnered a record 14 Michelin stars, created an underground 'cooking laboratory' nearby to prepare some of the dishes and keep a large wine cellar because the 45 square meter (484.4 sq ft) tower kitchen was too small to serve 120 guests.

But the dishes are completed by a team of 17 headed by Pascal Feraud in the tower.

Ducasse told French television he aimed to make the restaurant a shop window for French cuisine. But he said the Jules Verne would not become a luxury restaurant such as his three-star flagships Plaza Athenee in Paris and Louis XV in Monaco.

Ducasse recently opened in the Dorchester in London and has restaurants in New York, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Tokyo and several other places in Paris and in the rest of France.

At Jules Verne the lunch menu costs 75 euros ($107.8) and the dinner menu ranges from 155 to 170 euros, plus drinks.

(Reporting by Marcel Michelson; editing by Elizabeth Piper)