The latest offering from the French Clé Group has opened: the lush and velvety Hôtel National des Arts et Métiers in Paris.
Plush is one word for the 66-room hotel, where velvet and suede dominate rooms decked out in jeweled greens and purples. Design came from Paris-based designer Raphael Navot and architect-engineer Daniel Vaniche, head of the DVVD agency, which reworked the interior volumes of the two Haussmannian buildings that make up the property.
The hotel’s L’Herbarium creates mixed drinks in the style of a perfumer blending fragrances. Each drink at the 45-seat bar has a strong olfactory identity, designed to be both feminine and masculine.
Reception lounges sell cashmere-based travel collections by Le Kasha, a family-run Parisian knitwear company.
Design details include cut Parisian stone in the lobby, oxidized copper tubes acting as cladding for one of the restaurant’s walls, natural coatings in the corridors, terrazzo for the bathrooms, heat-blackened steel in the bookshelves, and burnt wood in the bar counter.
Style choices include vintage Tatra chairs for the restaurant, timber tabletops, concrete legs, washed velvet sofas, and suede curtains.
The hotel’s restaurants (the Italian-style La Cicchetteria National and Le Ristorante National) are run by Julien Cohen and the duo formed by Jean-Pierre Lopes and Thomas Delafon.