French interior designer Dorothée Meilichzon has converted the restaurant of London’s Henrietta Hotel into an homage to Parisian bistros for chef Jackson Boxer.
Set on the ground floor of the hotel’s 19th-century townhouse in Covent Garden, Henri serves classic French dishes with a British twist – and British produce – from grilled snails on skewers to a raclette burger au poivre.
The mishmash of influences in Boxer’s cooking is also reflected in Meilichzon’s interiors, where art nouveau details rub shoulders with the oakwood panelling and leather upholstery found in London’s public houses.
“We have designed an interior that mixes the relaxed style of a traditional British pub with the elegance of a typical French brasserie,” the designer told Dezeen.
Guests enter the restaurant via an informal bar area, where snacks and aperitifs are served on red Coralito marble counters.
Bulbous brass lights and table lamps with scalloped shades informed by plum blossoms provide points of brightness in the dimly lit interior, chosen as a tribute to Covent Garden’s former life as a fruit and vegetable market.
Forest-green paint adds to the cosy pub atmosphere, together with the dark timber wainscoting and the bar with its leather-upholstered stools.
The entrance also introduces Belle Epoque details such as spherical lights and gridded mirrored panels to create a sense of continuity with the main dining room.
“We have used some art nouveau elements typical in a brasserie: the detail on the arms of the banquettes, frosted glass globes, Thonet chairs and bespoke organic suspensions,” Meilichzon said.
Despite the restaurant’s small footprint, Meilichzon managed to squeeze in several banquettes with decoratively curved backrests and hidden cutlery storage, designed bespoke for the interior.
Near the entrance, there are smaller booths upholstered in duck-egg blue leather and velvet, with a lacquered frame in a darker midnight hue.
But as the space widens towards the open kitchen at the back, the palette becomes warmer and cosier with terracotta wall tiles and larger banquettes for sharing, finished in rust-coloured velvet with glossy red arms and backrests.
Accompanied by classic bentwood bistro chairs from Thonet, Henri’s marble-topped tables with their dramatic skirts were also custom-made for the restaurant.
Ornamentation is provided by an eclectic mix of artworks and photographs, framed alongside several mirrors and blackboards listing the daily specials.
Meilichzon also retained the restaurant’s existing floral ceiling murals, hand-painted on-site by French artists, that provide a counterweight to the rigid grid of the honeycomb parquet flooring.
Henri is the latest in a long line of collaborations between Meilichzon and the Experimental Group, a French hospitality group for which she has also designed hotels in Venice, Ibiza, Biarritz and the Cotswolds.
The photography is by WeTheFoodSnobs.
