THE WORLD'S BIGGEST MUSEUM
Hi everyone!
There are 6 luxury hotels in Paris which are repositories of our history
just like the great restaurants in the capital.
Today, we would like to show you the oldest of them.
It was created in the 19th century to accommodate English travelers.
Ladies and gents, the Meurice Hotel. Let’s go!
Hello, Mr. Brunet. Welcome to the Meurice!
I'm meeting Anne, Head of Communications at the hotel.
Hello. - Hello, Eric.
So Anne, when does the Meurice story begin?
You need to go back to 1771.
The story begins when Mr. Louis-Augustin Meurice...
HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS
… owned a small coach company, Le Chariot Royal, in Calais.
He ran a Calais to Paris shuttle.
It was in 1818 at the coach terminal
that his son had the idea of opening a second inn.
So, this is in the 1820’s. It's a quality hotel for the English,
who were almost the only ones travelling at that time.
Yes, and in 1835 when the Rue de Rivoli was finished,
or at least the first part from Place de la Concorde to Rue du Louvre.
Charles-Augustin wanted a new building, a luxurious one,
to make his hotel the splendid one we know today.
Then came the 1930s, the decadent era.
It's the era of kings, the hotel became a hotel for kings,
the Court of Spain with Alfonso XIII,
the King of Denmark, the Court of England,
the Bey of Tunis, the Shah of Iran.
Then there were business bigwigs like the Rockefellers
and then presidents like Doumergue and Roosevelt.
And then in the darker times, hotels and Parisian luxury hotels
are requisitioned by the Germans during the occupation.
The German army set up their headquarters here
and all the Parisian luxury hotels are full of Germans.
The next 4 to 5 years will be difficult, with pain and suffering,
a reflection of France.
Indeed, like all the hotels in Paris,
the Meurice was requisitioned by the Germans,
Luckily the cellar was walled in,
the staff were also requisitioned except the switchboard operators
and they were very dark times for everyone.
And then there's an extraordinary golden age right after the War.
France comes to life again. Americans come back to Paris.
Notably, Florence Gould,
a literature and culture enthusiast.
It's hard to believe that, in the 1950s, this rich American Francophile
made this regal place
into a lively, intellectual hub.
There was Matisse, Roger Nimier, Colette,
Edmond Rostand, Louise de Vilmorin, Elsa and Scott Fitzgerald…
In the 1950s, Salvador Dali arrived
about to revolutionize everything here.
He lived here for over 30 years and did some extraordinary things,
from organizing a swimwear fashion show in the Salon Pompadour
to bringing in many artists,
from Fellini to the Rolling Stones or French artists.
They would all come to his suite for five o’clock tea.
The staff loved him. As a tip, he'd sign lithographs for them,
handing them over personally.
It's not surprising that Philippe Starck
wanted to draw from this Dalinian imagination
to bring a little humor and glamour to the public spaces.
Are you ready? Ready when you are, chief…
Oh well, really…
Concierge Léonard, hello.
HEAD CONCIERGE
Mr. Wilson, how are you?
IS 7 PM OK, Mr. Wilson?
No problem. I'll be happy to confirm via text message, as usual.
So, I'll play the tour guide a little
because it's here, in Suites 102 and 103
that Salvador Dali lived
between the 1950s and his death in 1989.
They still treasure this armchair
which was his favorite.
So, these two rooms made up a suite,
this huge living room on the first floor of the hotel,
and then this second room,
which was his bedroom and is now obviously regularly rented out.
When shall we send the scrambled egg? - I'll let you know.
Let’s set up for our VIP clients in the Belle Étoile suite.
Service is soon.
Once the table is ready, could you redo a latte for me?
Please?
The eggs for the Belle Étoile suite.
Thank you.
Olivier, hello. - Hello, Eric.
You're in charge of room service? - Indeed.
It's a 24 hour restaurant service, open seven days a week.
So, if at 5 AM, I want a black angus steak,
a nice, big, tender piece of beef,
can I order it via room service at 4:30 AM?
Just like breakfast at 9 PM with fresh pastries. It’s all possible.
Here's a small presentation with little...
Are these apple sticks?
Green apple sticks and wild strawberries and more strawberries underneath.
Iced water for when Madam wakes up
with fresh orange juice and her usual latte.
And this?
Madam's scrambled eggs with herbs.
So, they say "scrambled eggs," then? - "Scrambled eggs with herbs."
Honestly, it's splendid.
On very rare occasions,
I wish I were an American client in the Belle Étoile suite.
Hello, did you have a good night? - Excellent.
Hello, Joseph Gardon, Head of Customer Relations.
It's a strategic position
because I have a great view of the whole reception area,
but I move around the hotel a lot, from the cellar to the attic.
Our role is to be close to the client...
HEAD OF CUSTOMER RELATIONS
… from beginning to end.
But then it's up to the floor service managers or housekeeping
to take over and relay information to us about the clients.
When you start working in a hotel at, let's say, 25 years of age,
and you meet actors like Burt Lancaster or Gloria Swanson
legendary actors like Elizabeth Taylor,
of course you're very impressed.
Part of the job is the pleasure of being close to these people
while still knowing your place.
She'll be back around 1 PM and would like to check out then, OK?
We represent a certain level of tradition of elegance
of central Paris.
It was the first luxury hotel in Paris and has been one for the past 200 years.
Let’s go meet one of the world's most famous
and brilliant designers: Philippe Starck.
Philippe Starck, who reinvented this place in 2007. Listen.
This is a place which is outside real life.
It's in another world
where everyone is better-looking and has more pizzazz.
Everyone is sexier and more elegant.
That's what it is and it's fairly easy
to find my inspiration right here
by looking at the building and its history,
but also by looking at those who take care of it.
We're in a fairy tale.
I like this hotel a lot. It's a bit like my second home.
Otherwise, after 34 years, I would've left by now.
There have been some rather nice things.
There was Mohammed Ali
who came down and offered me his book a while ago.
PUBLIC SPACE HOUSEKEEPER
I’ve got a signed copy of his book!
Then there was Bob Dylan.
I got to know Madonna right at the start
when she was just a backup singer.
She had a small room with a friend.
She was completely unknown.
Today, she is in the suites of course.
Ladies and gents, Wilfried Morandini!
Hi, Wilfried. - Hi, Eric.
You're the restaurant manager. - Yes, I'm lucky enough to be.
Who comes here? - The clientele is pretty international.
We have people from all over but also a real Parisian clientele.
LE MEURICE RESTAURANT MANAGER
It's a three star hotel, so we're not talking small dinners.
They'll be spending quite some time eating.
So, it's a celebration? - Absolutely.
You're so lucky to be in such an incredible place.
This room is stunning.
This salon is quite similar
to the Salon de la Paix in the Palace of Versailles.
It dates back to between 1905 and 1907.
Building started in 1905, but, as far as the hotel is concerned,
and also this room,
which was completely renovated in the year 2000,
we renovated the marble and the gold leaf.
The ceilings are by Théophile Poilpot, a painter of the time,
and, as you can see, there is his signature
and it's dated 1907.
And then, this very impressive chimney. - It’s all one piece.
Of marble? - It's one piece of marble.
It's a unique piece. It's extraordinary.
It's interesting that both the hotel and everything on this table
is a very balanced mix between modern and traditional.
Well our chef is like that.
I'd say that Yannick Alléno combines traditional cuisine
with a few lovely modern notes in his dishes.
That's strange, Wilfried. - We have plates with holes in.
They're one of Yannick’s creations.
You turn them over for dessert
because as your mom must have told you: “Finish up or there'll be no dessert.”
In the past they flipped the plates over to eat dessert from the back.
So, you turn it over then? - It's reversible.
There you go. - The dessert position.
The classic position for starter and main and then the dessert position.
How many of you will be pampering tonight's 45 guests?
There are twelve of us catering for those clients.
It's good that you mention "pampering"
because when clients arrive here, even in winter,
the ladies are usually very lightly dressed.
So, we have a box of pashminas available for them.
Some clients forgot their glasses for reading the menu,
so we have a box full of different ranges of glasses
with different prescriptions.
Ladies and gents, talk about quality service!
Thanks, Wilfried. - Thank you for your visit, Eric.
We mentioned Yannick Allénot, the prestigious chef here
but I want you to meet Camille Lesecq, who's just as prestigious.
He's a great French pastry chef and he's head pastry chef of this restaurant.
It'll be a real treat. Just look at this.
Today, dessert is coming in kit form.
Cut the tops off the egg shells.
Chocolate eggs.
HEAD PASTRY CHEF
I'm going to smear them in a bronze sheen powder
which will give the egg a ruby effect.
I'm making the chocolate mousse to fill the egg.
Beating the eggs with the sugar and chocolate mixture
will yield a very light mousse which melts in the mouth.
Then we bring together the unctuous mousse and whipped cream.
We'll present them in a box, so that it's a last-minute surprise.
The client opens the box like this to find his dessert.
The client will take the eggs,
he'll place them on his plate
and then,
we put a bit of raspberry marmalade
on the chocolate mousse
to give the dessert a fruity flavor.
Then we have our chocolate sauce.
There's also the little box
containing raspberry crisp.
And then,
we add dried fruit.
It’s up to the client.
If he wants to just add the raspberry marmalade and crisp,
he can stop there.
That's the fun part of it.
Our clients marvel at it.
One client even said: “Vive la France!” as it's so typically French.
Ara Starck, hello. - Hello.
You painted this canvas here on the ceiling
which is 145 square meters.
The logistics couldn't have been easy.
It wasn't easy. I realized that I'm very small.
PAINTER
but I started working triangle by triangle
because, you may not see it easily, but it's kind of a pyramid shape.
Each triangle measures 35 square meters, the size of a small Parisian studio.
So, it doesn’t fit just anywhere. It took five months.
We had one night to install it, well, 22 hours but it was still one night.
One thing your father, Philippe Starck, didn't want to do
was work with family.
Well, things change.
It's true that I was brought up not to work with family.
Everyone had to find their own path.
I was a painter and I thought: "I'll go check out the place.
"I'll go see
"what I could bring to this place, in case anyone ever asked."
You worked without telling anyone? - Not a soul, of course.
I worked on this project
and secretly gave it
to one of the people in charge of showing the various projects,
telling them: "Keep quiet."
Three hours later, my dad called me and said:
“I just chose the Meurice project and I was told it was yours.”
What about the figures? Who are they?
You could see them in two different ways.
He doesn’t like me, he’s glaring at me. - Yes, he does!
Does he like me? - Of course, they're all very nice.
It must be quite impressive to paint a permanent work of art
because it's not something you can just see
on the internet or in a museum, it's permanently there.
I was really interested in the idea of bringing back this tradition,
a mostly French tradition of having
canvasses or frescoes directly on the walls
in public places of French life.
Thank you very much, Ara Starck. - Thank you.
Claire is General Housekeeper.
Hi, Claire. - Hi, Eric.
Thank you for talking to us while you're working.
How many housekeepers are there?
It’s a team of about 70 people.
They say that the devil is in the detail. In a place as prestigious as this one,
it's not good to get the details wrong, VIPS might not like it.
We aim for excellence every time, It's not always easy.
It's precise work.
It ranges from requests for specific colors of flowers...
GENERAL HOUSEKEEPER
Hello, I'll take Suite 102, I want red flowers.
Red or white flowers.
A few days ago a client wanted
green-trimmed beige roses.
They're impossible to find in Paris right now.
What a rascal!
He wanted green-trimmed beige roses? - Yes, absolutely.
Did you find them? - Yes, in the end.
There are five or six big, Parisian luxury hotels,
each with its own style.
What's unique about this one?
The walls of this hotel are oozing
with a very specific family atmosphere.
It’s like a beautifully haunted house.
Thanks, Claire. - Thanks.
Is my room ready? Can I use the bed? - It still needs flowers and checking.
OK, if it's just the flowers...
Goodnight, Claire.
Emmanuel, are you the Dali manager? - Absolutely.
It’s fun, everything references Salvador Dali,
like this chair. - Absolutely. It's made of heavy brass
it's extremely heavy, it was designed...
It'll take two of us.
It was designed by Salvador Dali. - Amazing.
It has three legs. - Three heeled legs.
A combination of glamour and humor.
It's really in the spirit of Dali and later on, Philippe Starck,
like this shell armchair which has dolphins on it.
Dolphins are animals
that gather together to feed and have fun
so the link with the Dali was obvious.
They'd throw coins in front of him as he passed, to bring him luck
like a Roman emperor.
DALI RESTAURANT MANAGER
He'd throw paint from the first floor on the limousines below.
He had his habits and had great fun.
It was also about getting together and having fun.
And how does the clientele here differ from elsewhere?
They play the game, or they wouldn’t come here.
They totally buy in to our suggestions.
Ever since Philippe Starck put his stamp on it,
we're now in a place with its own true identity and culture.
Thank you.
What's the length of time
between now and when the American client called earlier?
The maximum time is 25 minutes, our standard time,
but we try to be as fast as possible for our clients.
How can you remember that this American client
- I'll keep my voice down, as he's in there -
likes berries?
Do you record conversations? Do you write it all down?
We note down all their habits.
If we notice a client is left-handed, for example,
ROOM SERVICE MANAGER
we'll reverse the place setting in his room
as the table is usually set for right-handers.
We note it all down in the Kardex for the next time he orders room service.
That's your database of their preferences? - Absolutely.
Amazing.
I’ll let you get on with it. Is there any chance of seeing the room?
Unfortunately, not right now. - OK then.
Thank you, Olivier. - Thank you.
The Belle Étoile suite is on the top floor.
It has a 250 square meter balcony. Very nice.
So what should we remember?
That it's the oldest of Paris's luxury hotels
and also the most literary of them.
The Countess of Ségur,
already mentions Abel, the Meurice concierge in one of her books.
Balzac mentions this place too.
And during the whole of the 20th century,
Picasso regularly came here for his wedding anniversary
Dali lived here for decades,
Marcel Jouhandeau, Colette...
It was an eminent and lively hub of literature
and we should remember that.
Ultimately, we're in the most artistic
and literary luxury hotel in Paris.
See you next week at 4:40 PM. Goodbye.
Subtitles: Babel Subtitling - babelSUB.be