The Times Weekend - UK (2021-11-13)

52 Travel

entire length of one wall, pa-

trolled by white-jacketed mix-

ologists who rattle their

cocktail shakers so vigorously,

they might register on the

Richter scale. Overhead, four

elaborate chandeliers by Ma-

thieu Lustrerie, whose crea-

tions adorn the Élysée Palace

and Versailles, provide some more

all-day sparkle.

The people-watching is straight

from a Netflix casting couch, a convivial

fusion of Call My Agent! socialites, Emily

in Paris creatives and a smattering of

well-heeled tourists including, if I’m not

mistaken, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne

over in a crepuscular corner. The scene is

as intoxicating as being swirled around

in a glass of Rémy Martin’s Louis XIII

cognac, and I learn more about the city

from joining this crowd than in a queue for

the Eiffel Tower.

Some things don’t change, though —

like the gallic lachanophobia (fear of vege-

tables). So my chicken may be plump and

Madame Rêve:

Paris’s latest

grande dame

The French capital’s hottest new hotel

sweeps Susan d’Arcy off her feet

I

had heard rumours that Paris had

changed, but when I first experience

its new, more relaxed attitude, it’s still

a shock. Not only is my waiter smiling

rather than surly, he understands my

order. And I’d asked for the chicken

with riviera vegetables in French.

My A-level franglais is as believable as

Dick Van Dyck’s Cockney accent, but it’s

good manners to attempt the local

language, so I persist. Almost to an apron,

the hospitality industry of France wishes

I wouldn’t and my efforts are usually

greeted with pained expressions.

But this time I’m at Madame Rêve, the

capital’s hottest new hotel, where the

modus operandi is groovy not grand. It

opened last month and occupies a con-

siderable chunk of La Poste du Louvre, the

historic central post office in the 1st arron-

dissement.

Parisians have watched with interest as

this much-loved Haussmannian master-

piece has undergone an eight-year reno-

vation, creating a smaller post office, a

police station, offices, and a hotel from

Laurent Taïeb, the rule-breaking hotelier

and restaurateur who brought sushi to

Paris in the 1990s and who is

intent on disrupting the city’s stuffy luxury

hotel scene.

His strategy is simple: get locals

mingling with tourists. So far, so good. The

main Mediterranean restaurant is packed

every night and anticipation is at fever

pitch for the November 25 launch of

La Plume, the hotel’s Japanese dining

room overseen by the former Zuma head

chef Benjamin Six.

“Parisians don’t want formal dinners

any more,” says dapper general manager

Frédéric Le Gallois, who earned his stripes

in historic palace hotels such as George V

and Le Bristol. “Until about four years ago

you couldn’t really get takeaways in Paris.

We thought they ruined the food. Covid

has changed the way we eat. Going out

is more about connecting with family

and friends now. People want to engage

with waiters, not have the traditional

distant service.”

It doesn’t hurt that, despite the country

experiencing a hospitality recruitment

crisis as serious as the UK’s, Le Gallois has

assembled a team of waiting staff who are

not only friendly but in possession of such

godlike good looks that they might have

stepped down from a plinth at the Louvre,

which, incidentally, sits at the other end of

the street. The grandeur of the building

plays its part too. The main restaurant-

cum-lobby is in the old dispatch room,

although apart from its soaring

8m-high ceiling and skyscraper

black pillars, Postman Patrice

wouldn’t recognise the place.

The decor is a delightfully

louche canvas of golds, apricots

and coppers with luxuriant

velvets and silks by Pierre Frey,

the super-posh textile house.

Taïeb has designed the sofas and

club chairs in the beaux-arts style

of the building’s era but with a

contemporary tweak. They look inti-

mate and inviting, set around onyx and

oak tables. For unnecessary extra drama,

a runway bar stretches down almost the

Luxury travel

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700 yards

A bedroom at Madame Rêve

The roof terrace at the hotel

Madame Rêve Café