Le Palais (頤宮) reservations run on a single rule worth memorizing: at midnight on the first of every month, the entire following month opens at once. This is the Cantonese restaurant on the 17th floor of the Palais de Chine Hotel, and it is Taiwan's only Michelin three-star restaurant, holding the rank every year from the first Taipei guide in 2018 through 2026. This guide covers how that booking system works, how the two signature ducks are pre-ordered, and what to budget, so the homework is done before you go.

The thirty second version: budget about US$80 to $125 per person a la carte, about US$110 to $140 with one of the signature ducks, and set menus are recorded from about US$156 (all including the 10 percent service charge); the calendar opens at 00:00 on the first of each month; closed Mondays; canceling within 48 hours of the meal costs about US$16 per person; men and boys aged 8 and up need long pants and closed shoes; and the biggest gap between expectation and fine print is that open seating carries no window guarantee, in the booking page's own words.

The last page carries a checklist of twelve things to do before you go. Every one is an action, not a feeling. The first one does not even happen in the month you dine. It happens on the last night of the month before.

中文版：頤宮訂位攻略 →

01 · Reservations

Midnight on the first, for the month after

After the third star arrived in 2018, Le Palais reportedly received more than three thousand reservation calls in a single month, and the restaurant responded by building the system it still runs today: at 00:00 on the first of each month, the entire following month opens for booking at once. Booking platform pages and recent guides all describe the same mechanism. What gets you a table here is not luck, it is punctuality.

When tables open	00:00 on the first of each month, for the whole following month (consistent across platform pages and 2025 to 2026 guides). A 2018 account describes popular dates selling out within ten minutes of opening. No recent precise sell-out timing is on record
Booking channels	Both inline and EZTABLE currently carry live booking pages for Le Palais, and an OpenTable page exists as well. Which channel the restaurant itself currently favors could not be established, because the official site would not load during this research. Check the official site before you book
Deposit	Platforms record a prepaid deposit of about US$16 (NT$500) per person, fully credited against the bill, with a credit card guarantee on the booking
Cancellation	Canceling or changing within 48 hours of the meal costs about US$16 (NT$500) per person, not refunded (platform terms and 2026 guides agree)
Party size	Online bookings run 1 to 10 people, larger parties by phone. The head count must include children and infants
Same-day booking	Platforms list same-day cutoffs of 11:00 am for lunch and 4:00 pm for dinner. Whether anything is actually free that day is another matter
Telephone	+886-2-2181-9950 extension 3261 (reservations desk). Private rooms and pre-order dishes are handled by phone
Private rooms	Six rooms, each with its own restroom. Recorded minimum spend about US$781 (NT$25,000) and up with no head count limit (2018 to 2022 accounts, dated); a 2026 guide adds that rooms can be booked up to six months ahead by phone (single source). Take the current quote as final
Waitlist	No official mechanism on record. The folk technique circulating since 2018 is to enter at midnight sharp and pick a date late in the month, where odds run better
Dress code	Business casual. Men and boys aged 8 and up need long pants and closed shoes; no sandals, slippers, shorts or sleeveless tops; no slippers for women. The restaurant reserves the right to refuse entry

As at its one-star neighbor across town, one task belongs inside the booking itself: the Flaming Duck and the Prophet Duck are both pre-order dishes, reserved when you book, and some special dishes are recorded as needing three days notice. Winning the midnight race is the first half. Attaching the duck before you hang up is the second.

What I would confirm first at this priceThe 48 hour line is the most practical rule on this page. The fee itself is small, about US$16 a person, but a three-star table surrendered late takes a month to win back. Put the 48-hour mark in your calendar the moment you book, and move any change of plans ahead of it.

How to plan it

Month beforeRegister on the booking platform and store a card in advance, so that midnight involves nothing but picking a date.
MidnightEnter on time. If your date is flexible, aim late in the month. The technique is old but the calendar is the judge.
Once bookedPre-order the duck in the same call or booking note. Three days notice is the floor for the special dishes.

02 · Getting there

A top floor by the main station, and two facts to settle first

Le Palais occupies the 17th floor of the Palais de Chine Hotel, a building that shares its block with Taipei Main Station, the intercity bus terminal and the Q Square mall. That makes it the easiest three-star restaurant to reach in Taiwan: rail, high speed rail, metro and coach all arrive downstairs. Two facts belong up front. It closes on Mondays. And the official booking page states plainly that open seating carries no window view guarantee, with tables assigned on site. Anyone booking for a 17th floor panorama should read that line first.

Address	17F, Palais de Chine Hotel, No. 3, Section 1, Chengde Road, Datong District, Taipei 103, Taiwan
Telephone	+886-2-2181-9950 extension 3261
Hours	Lunch 12:00 pm to 2:30 pm (last order 2:00 pm), dinner 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm (last order 9:00 pm). Closed Mondays. Older blog posts citing 11:30 am and 5:30 pm openings are out of date
By rail	Taipei Main Station exit Y5, then along Chengde Road. From the high speed rail, take the west exit and the footbridge across Civic Boulevard. The hotel entrance sits beside the Q Square doorway, above the bus terminal
Parking	Shared underground garage with Q Square and the bus terminal (B4 and B5). Dining credits parking, but the credited hours are not published, so confirm on site
Being seated	Take the lobby elevator straight to the 17th floor. The room divides into a dining area, a semi-open lounge section and the private rooms
Children and pets	No minimum age on record; the booking head count must include children and infants; guide dogs only

The structural consequenceThe shared block decides what this restaurant is best at: a high speed rail day trip that ends at a three-star table five minutes from the platform, and hosting out-of-town guests who never need to learn Taipei. Driving is the weak option, since the garage serves bus terminal and mall traffic at peak hours.

03 · Menu logic

A la carte at heart, with prices that move

The menu at Le Palais runs on three a la carte lines: Cantonese large-format dishes, barbecue, and dim sum, with the signatures concentrated among the pre-order dishes. A 2026 third-party guide also records set menus from about US$156 (NT$4,980), but most dining accounts describe a la carte meals, and no second source confirms the sets as a standing offer. The single most important piece of context for reading this menu is that its prices have climbed steadily for five years, so every review needs its date checked first.

A la carte bands	Dim sum about US$12 to 40 (NT$380 to 1,280, portions of 3 to 6); wok dishes about US$28 to 59 (NT$880 to 1,880); signature barbecue about US$40 to 59 (NT$1,280 to 1,880); the ducks about US$121 to 184 (NT$3,880 to 5,880). Compiled from 2022 to 2025 accounts, plus 10 percent service
The price trajectory	The Flaming Duck went from about US$124 in 2020 to about US$184 from 2022; the Prophet Duck from about US$93 to US$121; the Fuzhou scallion pancake nearly doubled in five years. Multiple accounts publish before-and-after prices, so this is not one observer's impression
Set menus	A 2026 guide records sets from about US$156 (NT$4,980); a separate figure of about US$1,031 (NT$32,980) for a three-star tasting set, three days notice, appears in one source only with the unit unclear, and stands unconfirmed
Vegetarian	A vegetarian set at about US$115 (NT$3,680) per person, minimum two, per 2021 to 2022 accounts. Confirm before you go
Service charge	10 percent (widely recorded). The tea charge is disputed: some accounts record a tea list at about US$6 to 14 (NT$188 to 438) per person, others state there is no mandatory tea charge and water is free. Sources disagree, so the answer lives at the table
Seasonality	No official statement, only records of the menu adjusting from time to time

In US dollar terms: a la carte without a duck runs about US$80 to 125 a head, and four people sharing a Flaming Duck land around US$110 to 140. Against Silks House across town, at roughly US$60 to 95 a head a la carte, the extra step at Le Palais buys the three-star ceremony and the two ducks that need a phone call.

How to read this menuNearly every signature lives in the pre-order column: both ducks, the crispy suckling pig, the Shaoxing wine chicken, the char siu. Which means half of this meal is decided on the day you book. Diners who first open the menu at the table eat a different and much more ordinary Le Palais.

04 · Signatures I

Two ducks, two sets of rules

The public record of Le Palais is largely written around two ducks. The Flaming Duck is the first signature: a Yilan-raised Peking duck served several ways, about US$184 (NT$5,880, the price recorded since 2022, with nothing newer on record). The Prophet Duck is the second: a 28-day-old bird cured in Chinese herbs for two days and roasted forty minutes in a hanging oven, about US$121 (NT$3,880, also a 2022 figure). Both require pre-ordering and both are limited daily, with the exact count unpublished.

Flaming Duck	Yilan Peking duck. From 2022 served four ways: pancake wraps, roasted leg, minced duck in lettuce, and taro rice noodle duck soup, with the exact combination varying slightly across accounts. In 2019 and 2020 it was three ways at about US$124. Reserved when you book
Prophet Duck	A 28-day bird, two days in an herbal cure, forty minutes in the oven, served two ways. The name comes from a line by the Song dynasty poet Su Shi, that the duck is first to know when the spring river warms. Multiple accounts record the server reciting the line as the dish lands. The duck soup gets singled out in 2024 to 2026 reviews
What reviews say	The Flaming Duck is the most repeated dish across every source since 2018, called the house signature across blogs, platforms and forums. Praise for the Prophet Duck centers on the soup and the skin. Neither duck draws recurring criticism, a point that matters on page 7
Portion logic	Both are whole-bird, table-scale dishes. A party of two picks one. A party of four or more can run both in one meal, and at that point the meal is a banquet

One warning stated on its own: US$184 and US$121 are 2022 figures, no public source has updated them, and this kitchen's prices have moved in one direction for five years. Ask for the current price when you pre-order and budget on the answer, not on any blog post, including this one.

Take your time The Prophet Duck arrives with a sentence. Several accounts, written independently, record the server reciting Su Shi's line about the spring river as the bird reaches the table. A dish that carries a nine-hundred-year-old poem is rare anywhere. Let the line finish before the chopsticks move.

05 · Signatures II

The Plate King is a rice roll, and the barbecue needs notice

Beyond the ducks, Le Palais splits into two lines. The dim sum line is led by the Spring Breeze cheong fun, a rice roll that once took the Plate King title, the single highest-voted dish in Taiwan's 500 Bowls awards. The barbecue line is led by the house char siu and the crispy suckling pig, and much of that line sits on the pre-order list. Dim sum appears at both lunch and dinner in the record, with one recurring warning: order it early in the meal, because it runs out.

Spring Breeze cheong fun	Plate King at the 500 Bowls awards (recorded 2023). Its price path, about US$18 to 28 to 40 (NT$580, 880, 1,280 across 2020 to 2024), is the whole restaurant's inflation in miniature
Other named dim sum	Shredded radish pastry, abalone and chicken siu mai, har gow, and typhoon-shelter turnip cake, each named independently by multiple accounts
House char siu	About US$53 (NT$1,680, a 2021 to 2022 price, with a period when it was suspended). Pre-order
Crispy suckling pig	About US$59 (NT$1,880, 2022 to 2023). Pre-order. In one broadly negative 2021 forum review, it was the single dish that scored well
Shaoxing wine chicken	About US$46 (NT$1,480) per half bird. Pre-order
Pre-order rules	Platform pages state that special dishes are limited and should be arranged with the reservations desk as early as possible; a 2026 guide records three days notice for some. Seasonal dishes such as the mud crab sticky rice belong to the same list

The pre-order rules in one line: the ducks are reserved when you book, the barbecue and special dishes take three days, and the dim sum is ordered at the table but not last. Half of this menu lives inside a phone call, and that is the single most unusual thing about how this restaurant works.

An advisor's readFor a controlled budget that still reaches the high notes, the combination I would suggest is a Prophet Duck, about US$60 less than the Flaming Duck, plus the Spring Breeze cheong fun and two or three dim sum items. Split four ways that lands near US$90 a head, with the pre-order system and the Plate King both on the table. What you give up is only the flame.

06 · Drinks

Corkage from US$38, and a tea charge with two versions

The drinks record comes in two layers. The certain layer: corkage exists, stated in the platform's own terms. The numbers layer is third party only: a 2026 guide records about US$38 (NT$1,200) per bottle of wine and about US$63 (NT$2,000) per bottle of spirits. No official wine pairing information exists anywhere in the record.

Corkage	Wine about US$38 (NT$1,200) per bottle, spirits about US$63 (NT$2,000) per bottle, per a 2026 third-party guide rather than an official page. Confirm by phone before carrying a bottle in
Pairing	No official information. Whether a pairing or sommelier service exists is a question for the booking call
Tea	Two versions coexist: accounts recording a tea list at about US$6 to 14 (NT$188 to 438) per person, from longan blossom to high mountain Dayuling, and accounts stating no mandatory tea charge with free water. Presented side by side; the table decides
Without alcohol	The tea list on record reaches serious Taiwanese high mountain teas, so tea here is not a fallback. It is the parallel first-class option

For context, corkage at Silks House across town is about US$16 for wine, so the figure recorded here is more than double. Bringing a bottle still works, but the arithmetic only feels good split four ways or more. On a tight budget, moving the wine money to one more pre-order dish is often the smarter allocation.

The structural consequenceTwo coexisting versions of the tea charge most likely mean the policy changed at some point or varies by tea, which is one more instance of this restaurant's golden rule: read every account with its year attached. Every number on this page deserves ten seconds of confirmation in the pre-order phone call you were going to make anyway.

07 · Reviews

The ducks are not the argument

The scale first: 4.6 stars across 1,155 reviews on EZTABLE; 4.5 across 934 on Tripadvisor, first of the restaurants ranked in Datong District; 4.5 across 53 write-ups on iFoodie. What follows includes only points repeated across three or more sources, isolated remarks left out. This record spans 2018 to 2026, a long arc, which is why the year a review was written matters more than what it says.

Praised repeatedly

The Flaming Duck. The consensus signature across every source since 2018, with the praise centered on the skin and the completeness of the multi-course service
The dim sum bench. The Spring Breeze cheong fun (Plate King), the radish pastry and the abalone chicken siu mai are each named independently
Service. Tableside explanation, unprompted portioning and carving, multilingual staff. One forum thread is titled, in effect, that the service exceeded all expectation
The room and the spacing. Generous table distances and privacy; the view that it is worth the price once service and setting are counted appears on forums
The Prophet Duck's soup, singled out in reviews from 2024 onward

Repeated warnings

Booking difficulty. The midnight-of-the-first system and the speed at which popular dates vanish open nearly every guide-style review
Price inflation. Multiple accounts publish before-and-after comparisons (the duck up roughly half in five years, the cheong fun doubled), and the complaint that prices climbed after the stars recurs on forums
The three-stars-or-not argument. The skeptics hold that setting and service carry the rating and that the duck has rivals in town; the defenders hold that for a three-star experience the bill is fair. Both camps exist and neither is a lone voice
Consistency outside the signatures. Accounts from 2021 to 2023 describe wok dishes and some dim sum missing the mark, while the same accounts rarely fault the ducks
Signatures locked behind pre-orders. The reminder to reserve dishes in advance is a fixed sentence of every guide-style review

How to read this setStack the praise against the warnings and the shape is clear: the pre-order system (ducks, barbecue) and the dim sum are solid, and the disputes concentrate on price and on dishes outside the signatures. That yields a practical conclusion. At Le Palais, ordering strategy is risk management. Put the budget on pre-order dishes and the named dim sum and you dine in the praised half of the restaurant. Fill the table with casual wok orders and you have walked into the argued half.

08 · Planning the meal

Ordering strategy is risk management

The first seven pages collapse into three scenarios. Exchange rate at roughly NT$32 per US dollar, figures including the 10 percent service charge, rounded, and based on 2022 to 2026 published records. The ducks have no newer public price, so ask when you pre-order.

Two people, Prophet Duck	The Prophet Duck plus two or three dim sum items and one seasonal dish, about US$220 to 240 all in, US$110 to 120 per person. The ceiling of what a two-top can reach here, with the duck soup closing the meal
Four people, Flaming Duck	The Flaming Duck plus char siu or suckling pig, two wok dishes and a spread of dim sum, about US$430 to 480 all in, US$108 to 120 per person. The fullest coverage of the signatures, and the multi-course duck service only opens up at this head count
On a budget, dim sum lunch	No duck, four or five dim sum items and one barbecue dish, about US$60 to 90 per person. The Plate King rice roll and the three-star dim sum bench included; what is missing is the ceremony
Hosting, private rooms	Recorded minimum about US$781 (NT$25,000) and up, no head count limit (2018 to 2022 accounts), bookable up to six months ahead by phone. A three-star private room is this restaurant's singular product in Taipei's hosting market

On timing: Mondays are out. Same-day booking has its 11:00 am and 4:00 pm cutoffs, but what you are really waiting on is a cancellation. The only controllable entrance is midnight on the first. And as with its one-star neighbor, the duck is carved and the poem is recited, so this is the wrong restaurant for a meal with a hard stop. Leave slack in the high speed rail ticket home.

How to plan it

On a budgetThe dim sum lunch, US$60 to 90 a head, with the Plate King present.
First visitGather four, build around the Flaming Duck, budget near US$120 a head, and confirm the current duck price when pre-ordering.
HostingCall six months out for a private room and settle the pre-order dishes in the same conversation. Let the reservations desk build the menu with you.

09 · Nearby

For the month the calendar says no

The other face of the midnight-of-the-first system is that missing it means waiting a month. So this page sorts the alternatives by what you are actually craving: something in the same building, something in the station district, or a starred Chinese table elsewhere in Taipei.

In the same building

La Rotisserie at Cloud (6th floor): the hotel's Western dining room, the in-house fallback for dinner, listed under the name Cloud restaurant in Chinese sources
Le Thé (all-day dining and afternoon tea) and Ciao by Fratelli Pennisi (steak). The Palais de Chine dining roster is compact, so the in-house fallback runs shallower here than at the Regent across town

The station district and Taipei's starred Chinese tables

The Guest House (Sheraton Grand Taipei, one metro stop away): Sichuan and Huaiyang cooking, two stars from 2018 to 2022 and one star since 2023, with the Momentum Award at the 2025 500 Bowls. The closest peer in the station district, in a completely different cuisine, and the full guide is here →
Da San Yuan (Hengyang Road, about 15 minutes on foot): a fifty-year Cantonese institution, one star from 2018 to 2020. The Cantonese option that requires no midnight race, one price band down
Silks House (Regent Taipei, Zhongshan station): the Cantonese room that earned its first star in 2026, with three straight 500 Bowls championships behind it. Just as hard to book, but on a different clock, opening about 30 days out. The full guide is here →
Ya Ge (Mandarin Oriental Taipei): one star nine years running, 2018 through 2026, the Cantonese comparison outside the station district and the easiest booking of the four. The full guide is here →
GEN (Kaohsiung): the counter-style Cantonese restaurant run by Chen Tai-Jung, the former co-executive chef who left Le Palais in 2023, one star in the 2025 Kaohsiung guide. For anyone tracing the Le Palais bloodline, the trail leads south

An advisor's readName the craving first. If it is the three-star meal itself, there is no substitute and the answer is next month's midnight. If it is a fine Chinese dinner near the station, The Guest House is the nearest peer. If it is starred Cantonese specifically, Silks House and Ya Ge are the parallel answers and Da San Yuan is the one that never makes you race a clock.

10 · Details and history

Two chefs, then one, and the stars that stayed

Le Palais opened in 2010 with the hotel around it, and the name is simply French for palace. Its three stars read like a constant, but the kitchen went through a change in 2023 that gets little attention: Chen Tai-Jung, the co-executive chef who had shared the pass for years, resigned for health reasons, and the two-chef era became one. The 2024, 2025 and 2026 guides each renewed the three stars afterward.

The chef	Ken Chan (Chan Wai-Keung), born in Hong Kong, close to fifty years in kitchens and more than thirty in Taiwan, the first chef in Taiwan to hold three Michelin stars. Still leading the kitchen in 2026. Some 2025 and 2026 media reuse the old two-chef description; the post-2023 reporting is the accurate version
The former co-chef	Chen Tai-Jung, from Macau, resigned in early 2023 and now leads GEN in Kaohsiung, which holds one star in the 2025 Kaohsiung guide
The room	The hotel's top floor, designed by Ray Chen with a strolling-garden concept: dining area, semi-open lounge and private rooms borrowing views from one another, six private rooms in all
The group	LDC Hotels and Resorts, built from the former Chinatrust hotel chain after Kung Wai-Ju and Chang An-Ping took over in 2009, runs Palais de Chine, Fleur de Chine, Chateau and other brands in Taiwan plus estate hotels in Italy. Le Palais has no standing sister restaurant

The record, year by year

2018	Three stars in the first MICHELIN Guide Taipei, the only three-star restaurant in that inaugural guide
2019–2022	Three stars renewed each year. Eight plates in the first 500 Bowls awards in 2021
2023	A sixth year of three stars; Tairroir and JL Studio joined the rank, ending the monopoly. The Spring Breeze cheong fun took the Plate King title in the same period
2024–2025	Seventh and eighth consecutive years; six plates in the 2025 edition of 500 Bowls
2026	A ninth consecutive year of three stars, announced 21 July 2026, still the only restaurant in Taiwan to hold the top rank since the first guide

Take your time The heaviest line in that table is not any single award. It is the turn from 2023 to 2024, when the kitchen lost a chef who had shared it for years and the stars did not move. Three stars rate a restaurant, not a person. Le Palais is one of the few places where that sentence has actually been put to the test.