Paris. It is 9.30 a.m. in the Haut Marais. The aroma of coffee drifts from the cafés along Rue des Gravilliers, lingering on the pavement. Behind the pale wooden façade of Datil, however, the warm-up is already over. In the dining room, napkins are being folded, tablecloths carefully smoothed into place, and the final touches put to tables adorned with ranunculus. Flooded with natural light from a central glass roof, the long, narrow space stretches all the way to the open kitchen.

On the pass, a row of mugs stands neatly lined up. All at the same height, yet each one different. It may seem like an insignificant detail, but these everyday objects, patiently waiting to be returned to the staff shelf, say a great deal about the team spirit that defines Datil. The organisation here is deliberately horizontal. There are no visible markers of hierarchy. No posturing. Little noise, but constant attentiveness. No reprimands, just a corrected gesture, a smile, a tip shared in passing.

Datil is an unusual restaurant, one that thrives on the collective rather than the individual. And yes, the team is predominantly female, which undoubtedly contributes to the culture of care that permeates the place.

Whether in the kitchen or the dining room, everyone seems to know exactly what needs to be done. Everyone has their place, and every role carries equal value. Having cleared her workstation, a young blonde woman – slight, almost fragile in appearance – begins carefully zesting a lemon. Her name is Manon Fleury. She co-leads the kitchen at Datil alongside her business partner, Laurène Barjhoux. And, like everyone else, she is immersed in the day’s preparations.

Nothing immediately betrays her past as an elite athlete, except the way she occupies the space. The firmness of her stance. Her posture. Her concentration. The effortless precision of her movements. It is hard to picture her as a teenager, sabre in hand, springing across a fencing piste. Or to imagine that by the age of 27 she was already running the kitchen at Le Mermoz, the acclaimed Parisian neo-bistro just off the Champs-Élysées. Did she ever imagine that, at 35, she would be leading a team of seventeen and running a restaurant awarded a Michelin star in its very first year? Probably not.