When César Ritz opened the Grand Hôtel de Monte-Carlo in 1881 he created the blueprint for luxury hotels today by bringing a tailor, a florist, a shoemaker, a chef and a perfumer, Nestor Moëhr, under one roof to craft bespoke creations for the palace-like property on the Riviera. Ritz eventually left Monte-Carlo for Paris to start his own eponymous hotel, but the perfumer Moëhr stayed on, eventually launching his own perfume house, La Parfumerie de Monte-Carlo.
La Parfumerie de Monte-Carlo disappeared when the Grand Hôtel shuttered its doors, but now, more than 100 years after it was first created, two brothers, Vincent and Nicolas Poylo, are reviving the house for a new era with six fragrances, each named after an imaginary guest and contained in a bottle inspired by the Grand Hôtel’s archives.
Archive image of the Grand Hôtel de Monte-Carlo.
The idea for the relaunch came about in 2023, while Nicolas was working for Art Recherche Industrie on the opening of the former Hotel Drei Berge in the small Oberland village of Mürren and began researching César Ritz and, through that, learned about Moëhr.
‘My brother Vincent and I grew up in a hotel run by our mother, immersed from childhood in service and gastronomy,’ says Nicholas. ‘Reviving a sleeping heritage felt natural. Vincent was then working alongside Chef Mauro Colagreco and living at the old Grand Hôtel du Cap Martin, a former hotel turned residence in 1943, where several original interiors remain. It became the backdrop of Moëhr, exploring through fragrance a long-gone era at the crossroads of the golden age of hospitality and our own childhood memories.’
Moëhr founders Vincent and Nicolas Poylo
Once they hit on the idea, the brothers spent years studying travel cases, fragrance flacons, medicine boxes and silverware from the turn of the 20th century to develop the bottle design, drawing particular inspiration from the work of Martin-Guillaume Biennais (Napoleon's goldsmith); a collection of French antique copper savarin molds used in the Grand Hôtel’s kitchens by Chef Auguste Escoffier; and tableware from several other Grand Hôtels of the period.
The final result is a glass flute made at a family-owned manufactory in Veneto, topped with a twisted cap cast in zinc (the metal of the Grand Hôtel’s original bar counter) and labelled with the calligraphy of Mexican painter Esteban Fuentes de Maria.
The perfumes themselves range from the powdery florals to ambery spices, but are all united by a classic cologne quality that makes them feel old-world without being stuffy. The scents are: Septime, the lightest of the family with notes of lily, benzoin and white pepper; Swann, a delicately goumard blend of orange blossom and almond paste; Sinclair, a mix of lavender, incense and olive; Jadis, a blend of rose, iris butter and pink pepper; Otis, a spicy mix of saffron and cardamom; and the richest of the collection, Benedict, with notes of cocoa, incense and tobacco.
Made in partnership with Mane, a family house founded in 1871 in Bar-sur-Loup, the six scents are crafted using a unique CO2 extraction, solvent-free process that isolates compounds at low temperature, without thermal alteration or residue. The result is a range of clean, long-lasting scents just in time for summer.
From 1 June, Moëhr will be available exclusively at Antonia via Sant’Andrea in Milan and roll out to other European retailers throughout the summer.