To create a brand new look for the bar and restaurant at the Plaza Athénée in Paris, François Delahaye and Alain Ducasse called once again on the talents of the Jouin Manku design studio, entrusting Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku with the interior design of these two spaces.

Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku have conceived a project full of fantasy and wonder, featuring key architectural elements that showcase the savoir-faire of numerous craftspeople.Patrick Jouin  audacious, contemporary approach propelled the Plaza Athénée bar into the list of the world’s most fashionable addresses.  A big change in this iteration of the restaurant is that now the room will house not only one, but two restaurants: one ambience for breakfast and another for the haute-cuisine restaurant, differentiated by the tableware, the lighting and totally different spatial organisations.

As people enter the restaurant,people attention is drawn to the monumental polished stainless-steel domes on the floor that reflect the thousands of floating crystals of the ceiling chandelier, the only retained element of the restaurant’s former design. These super-scaled and unusual domed shapes form the backrest of banquettes where diners can sit, or screen off groups of tables and chairs. These domes, a witty and elegant twist on the traditional domed plate cover are made by ‘Meilleur Ouvrier de France’* artisans at Matinox and Le Floc’h.

On the left, a striking timber alcove wraps itself around a single table where diners receive a dedicated service and benefit from greater privacy.The outside of the alcove is in unfinished timber, made of strips of curved oak joined together in a shape somewhat reminiscent of the hull of a fishing boat.  it highlights the overall character of the project, which places itself somewhere between refined simplicity and elegant authenticity. Nestled inside the wood shell is a leather banquette that fills the width of the alcove while the alcove’s inner surface of moulded plaster is finished with a surprising motif: the imprint of the restaurant’s old screens, that were decorated with embroidered details of vegetables. 

In detail The ADPA restaurant A thread linking the history of the Plaza Athénée and the new restaurant is Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku’s redesign of the service trolleys. To the existing trolleys – very proper objects and a particularly traditional feature of the gastronomic world – the designers have added a touch of mischievous humour, making them more casual, with white, spoked wheels like those on a bicycle. All of the technical parts and the trays have been redesigned in stainless steel, the silver domed plate-cover has been conserved in its original state.

Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku have created four luminous and intriguing screens that are used to structure the restaurant space. Built by Rinck and using the same woven metal fabric Patrick Jouin had used for the restaurant’s curtains during a previous re-fit, the screens’ uppermost section is a polished stainless steel ‘mirror’, whose reflections make the space feel larger.