For the latest outpost of his Beefbar restaurant group, Ricardo Giraudi could not have picked a more show-stopping space: a suite of art nouveau and art deco rooms that used to house the classic brasserie, La Fermette Marbeuf.
After a total spruce up by long-time Beefbar collaborators, Humbert & Poyet, the restaurant is a dazzling study in light and colours. The dark shades of the carpet’s floral insignia grounds bands of white marble and pilasters, brass pendant lamps and wall-panels etched with sunflowers, though the literal centrepiece is the conservatory that’s capped by a steel ribbed roof of stain-glassed flowers.
All of which might have overwhelmed the food, but under the light hand of head chef Gabriele Faïella, a sous chef under Gordon Ramsay, the quality of the beef more than holds its own, particularly a Kobe beef ham cured in Spain, and Korean buns enfolding beef smoked with jasmine tea. §
