Very few structures on earth are as iconic and as visited as Paris’s Iron Lady. The Eiffel Tower is the rebel sentinel of Paris, the absolute architectural fantasy, spreading its magic all over the world.  I had the immense joy of being able to touch the evocative power of this symbol, through the passionate adventure of the renovation of the restaurant Le Jules Verne. With Frederic Anton, we looked for a fresh start, commencing the journey from the ground floor south pilar where the visitors rediscover the solid structural foundations anchored into the Parisian pavement, thanks to a play on mirrors and black and white stone. The journey in the elevator is fascinating: it is like entering the brain of the famous engineer, Gustave Eiffel, and absorbing all the wonderment of discovering Paris from above, both at the same time.

The chef Frédéric Anton is a true inspiration and collaborating with him meant endless hours of working in his kitchen, watching him transform and elevate every product into art. I carved out the space with this feeling of high tailoring in mind and the idea of impregnating the walls and ceilings with the powerful geometries of the Eiffel tower’s industrial prouesse, where the metal resembles lace. I looked for the feeling of a surreal image of modernity steeped into a silverplate emotion of 1900s photos. Paris and women’s elegance where on my mind as much as the extraordinary adventures of the prolific writer, Jules Verne, from whom I extracted excerpts of ‘Les Voyages Extraordinaires’ to engrave on the ‘literary plate’ made in France with Leblon Delienne. This is how books arrived on the table to greet the guests with food for thought, like an entrée before the chef’s creation.

I used the symbol of the Eiffel tour’s architecture to underline the Iron lady’s strength and delicatesse in every space, volume, and bespoke furniture. Playing on mirrors, the sensation of the space is amplified, and the Parisian sky is invited to caress the white ceilings hand painted with layers of shimmering whites, like a giant cloud . The oversize circular ceiling light rings are a node to the Eiffel tower’s pulleys constant movement. The ‘Iron Lady’ chairs with embossed velvet called ‘les toits de Paris’ envelop the solid metal structure with an arched leg, evoking the restless work of a hidden female engineer in Gustave Eiffel’s team who allegedly developed the complex arched supporting structure, as I discovered per Françoise Sagan’s book, “The sentinel of Paris”.