KazPost

Kazakhstan News
Friday, Mar 29, 2024

This Is Mon Square, Paris’s Hottest New Restaurant

This Is Mon Square, Paris’s Hottest New Restaurant

The chic, colorful interiors by Florence Lopez make this 7th arrondissement spot a design lover’s dream.

“I try not to limit myself to any one style,” says the French designer Florence Lopez, standing in the middle of her first public project, Mon Square, a striking new restaurant on the Left Bank of Paris. “What matters the most in any interior is its personality-it should have a real sense of place, one that is not quite like any other.”

Mon Square is situated in a corner of Paris that is almost achingly beautiful. It is in the heart of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, directly across from the Sainte-Clotilde Basilica, a 19th-century neo-Gothic structure in pale limestone with twin spires. Across the street from the church is a small park, Square Samuel Rousseau, with an oval green lawn and towering chestnuts and plane trees, bordered by a black wrought-iron fence.

            

The restaurant’s owner, 32-year-old Quentin de Fleuriau, is a veteran of the Costes brothers’ empire. He spent more than six years learning the ropes at the Hôtel Costes, had stints at L’Avenue, La Belle Armée, and La Société, and was director of Café Marly. He’d known since he was a teenager, throwing parties at boarding school, that he wanted to have his own spot.

After spending more than two years tracking down the location, he found a faded neighborhood bistro and signed a lease within 30 minutes. “At first, we were just going to redo the banquettes and repaint the walls,” de Fleuriau explains. “But we took everything down and brought in Florence, who has been a friend for many years. She was immediately inspired to make the restaurant feel as though you are dining in the square across the street.”

Lopez was born and raised in Bordeaux, into the Dourthe family, who have produced Médoc wine since 1840. Design was never far away: Her mother was a designer with great flair and the niece of Henri Frugès, who, in 1920, commissioned Le Corbusier to build a modernist neighborhood in Bordeaux, the Cité Frugès, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. At 18, Lopez moved to Paris and befriended such tastemakers as the artists Les Lalanne, the designer Eric Schmitt, the artist and architect Olivier Gagnère, and the sculptor César. She worked for the fabric house Etamine, then headed to New York for an internship at Christie’s and stints with Parish-Hadley and McMillen Inc. Returning to Paris, she worked with Jacques Garcia before striking out on her own.

For more than two decades, Lopez’s atelier has worked out of a walk-up studio on the rue du Dragon, not far from Mon Square, where her clients have included François Pinault, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter, Carole Bouquet, and Gérard Depardieu.

            

“I had been approached about doing hotels and commercial projects but was never interested until now,” Lopez says of her first foray into restaurant design. “As soon as I visited the site, I had a vision: an imaginary garden, very Parisian, accompanied by the sounds of Claude Debussy, a composer I adore.”

She created four main spaces at Mon Square: a large terrace protected by a long awning; a dramatic central bar; and two dining salons-a pink room to the left of the bar and a green one up some stairs.

                

Elements of nature are everywhere: The front doors have brass handles in the form of branches; the floors and many walls are dark green; and tables have brass bases with tops in green agate or pink quartz.

To complete Mon Square, Lopez called on a trio of artists and artisans. Painter Sacha Floch Poliakoff, the 24-year-old great-granddaughter of Russian-French artist Serge Poliakoff, created murals of bucolic scenes. Bela Silva, a ceramist from Lisbon, made a number of exotic pieces: a flock of colorful birds in brass sconces perched along the outside walls; a massive tree that rises above the bar; and an elaborate mantel in leaves of textured, green-enameled porcelain.

                

A private room off the upstairs dining room is a collaboration with contemporary artist Mathias Kiss. The low-ceilinged space, known as the Ma Kiss Room, has a banana leaf–motif carpet by Madeleine Castaing, a ceiling mosaic depicting nine different skies, and mirrors along all four walls.

Since opening in January, the 150-seat restaurant, which serves seasonal French cuisine, has begun to pull in a lively crowd of film stars, politicians, diplomats, neighborhood regulars, and young and trendy Parisians. “This feels,” de Fleuriau says, “like the beginning of a beautiful story.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

KazPost
0:00
0:00
Close
It's always the people with the dirty hands pointing their fingers
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
Historic Moment: Edgars Rinkevics, EU's First Openly Gay Head of State, Takes Office as Latvia's President
An Ominous Shift in Warfare: Western Powers Risk War Crimes and Violate International Norms with Cluster Bomb Supply to Ukraine
Bye bye democracy, human rights, freedom: French Cops Can Now Secretly Activate Phone Cameras, Microphones And GPS To Spy On Citizens
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
The New French Revolution
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
Corruption in the European Parliament - Business as usual
UK Crypto and Stablecoin Regulations Become Law as Royal Assent is Granted
Paris Suburb Grapples with Violence as Curfew Imposed: Saint-Denis Residents Express Dismay and Anger
A Delaware city wants to let businesses vote in its elections
Alef Aeronautics Achieves Historic Milestone with Flight Certification for World's First Flying Car
Google Blocked Access to Canadian News in Response to New Legislation
French Politicians Advocate for Pan-European Regulation on Social Media Influencers
×