DINERS weary of lowly cooking might soon be offered the ultimate in haute cuisine: a restaurant run by Alain Ducasse, the French super-chef, more than 400ft (120m) up the Eiffel Tower.

M Ducasse, the only chef to hold three Michelin stars in three countries, is said to be one of the bidders for the concession to the restaurant, which has a spectacular view of Paris.

The site, which is on the second floor and has been a restaurant since 1889, has been occupied for the past 25 years by the Jules Verne, a Michelin single-star establishment.

Betrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, and SETE, the tower management company, which is controlled by the city council, opened bidding for the concessions to all the monument’s catering and its television masts. The drive to improve the quality of city services and increase income has caused uproar. They have targeted concessions awarded without much competition between 1977 and 1995 when Jacques Chirac, now President, was mayor.

The Jules Verne, which features a gastronomic menu of €128 (£88) without a drink, is one of five catering outlets on the tower — all run since 1983 by Elior, a Paris company that specialises in museum restaurants.

The company is fighting to keep its outlets, which have sometimes been criticised for selling the view rather than food quality. Altitude 95, the brasserie on the first floor, is one of the most popular sites for marriage proposals in the world, but it has a reputation for lacklustre cuisine.

The city, which wants a higher income from the concessions, has sworn bidders to secrecy. The newspaper Le Parisien reported that M Ducasse, whose three-star eateries are in New York, Paris and Monaco, has allied himself with a bid by Sodexho, the global catering giant. None of those involved would comment yesterday. Jean-Bernard Bros, the city deputy mayor, who is in charge of tourism and heads SETE, refused to give details on the number of bidders or the sums involved. A decision will be made this month.

“The restaurant concession had not been renewed for 25 years. The concession system has always existed, since the tower was built,” he told The Times. The city aims to make far more than the €5.8 million a year it receives now.

M Delanoë set the pace in July when he evicted the Racing Club de France, the most historic sporting association in the country and the training ground of many Olympic medallists, from its century-old site in the Bois de Boulogne in western Paris. The concession was won for an undisclosed sum by Arnaud Lagardère, the aerospace, arms and media tycoon.