Paris Society, Accor’s latest acquisition, is going global
Accor has taken full control of Paris Society and will now roll the brand’s concepts out globally, writes Nigel Tisdall.
The French hospitality giant previously held a 38% stake in the highly successful collection of 60 restaurants, clubs, hotels and events venues. Traditionally centred on the French capital but now with footholds in London, Dubai, Miami and Los Angeles, its multiple brands will be rolled out across leading cities from New York to Sydney via Istanbul over the next five years.
Paris Society founder Laurent de Gourcuff was a mere 22 years old when he opened his first nightclub, Les Planches, near the Champs-Elysees in 2008. His winning formula has been to only use iconic buildings in prime locations that come with a large terrace.
Star examples are Girafe in the Palais de Chaillot, where customers dining on bountiful platters of fruits de mer have a grandstand view of the Eiffel Tower, and CoCo set in the operatic splendour of the 1875 Palais Garnier where demand is so strong the restaurant receives up to 4,000 calls a day with only 2% successful (tip: make your reservations through a top hotel concierge, who receive a regular allocation).
Leading this international expansion is chief executive Brian Bendix, a Danish luxury industry veteran who cut his teeth with Sir Terence Conran and defines the Paris Society’s ethos as “understated sophistication”. As an example he cites a beachfront outpost of the Italian-cuisine Gigi restaurants that his team are currently setting up in Dubai. “It won’t be white, linear or contemporary,” Bendix says, but instead feel organic with sustainable climate control and a garden with some 800 plants and trees.
Bendix also sees the luxury hotel landscape as ripe for change. “We’re not interested in five star or bling,” he explains. For Paris Society, creating an intimate social environment that appeals to diverse ages is a principal driver rather than focusing on guest room amenities.
At present its most prominent hotel is the Philippe Starck-designed Villa M near Gare de Paris-Montparnasse which opened in November 2021 and has an eye-catching eight-storey facade cloaked with medicinal trees and shrubs. Inside lie 73 art-filled rooms, a fitness centre that offers boxing lessons and a mellow lounge-restaurant with soft lighting, colourful rugs and a generous breakfast offering that exudes warmth and homeliness.
Paris Society also has Le Refuge de Solaise in Val d’Isere with 16 rooms and a Gigi restaurant, which at 2,552-metres is one of the highest hotels in Europe.
The company is developing a historic citadel on Belle Ile, off the south coast of Brittany, while its most exciting project is arguably the transformation of a vast former Cistercian abbey near Rambouillet that was restored by the Rothschild family in the 1870s.
It took De Gourcuff three years to find this perfect property to work his magic on, the criteria being that it had to be within a 45-minute drive of the French capital and have a lake. Slated to open in October, Hotel Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay will be a rural flagship for Paris Society’s food-first philosophy, armed with five restaurants but only 149 rooms. While that seems so utterly French, it is a formula that has so far proved very smart.
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