Mention La Crêperie to any Beiruiti and they get all misty-eyed. ‘Ah, La Crêperie,’ they coo, as anecdotes of first kisses, drunken nights and romantic dates ensue. The restaurant that brought crêpes, French-style seafood and Mediterranean dishes to Lebanon in the 1960s, is etched into the memory of every well-heeled local who remembers when Jounieh Bay, above which it sits, was known as the Monte Carlo of the East. Against all odds, La Crêperie survived civil war and civic unrest, until 2012 when it finally closed its doors. Now, after a multi-million dollar renovation it has re-opened under the aegis of entrepreneur Chafic El Khazen, whose great grandfather bought the building as a family villa in the 1800s. It’s now a National Heritage site and many original architecture features have been restored, while lush gardens tumble down the hillside to a lower level bar, built into cellars. With space for 500 guests, a pizza oven, an open-air rotisserie and a crêpe station, La Crêperie will once more be the place for raucous weddings, special anniversaries and teenage misdemeanours.
ADDRESS
Kaslik
Jounieh
Lebanon
-
Like a modernist iceberg, this Krakow house has a perfectly chiselled façadeA Krakow house by Polish architecture studio UCEES unites brutalist materialities with modernist form
-
Leo Costelloe turns the kitchen into a site of fantasy and uneaseFor Frieze week, Costelloe transforms everyday domesticity into something intimate, surreal and faintly haunted at The Shop at Sadie Coles
-
Can surrealism be erotic? Yes if women can reclaim their power, says a London exhibition‘Unveiled Desires: Fetish & The Erotic in Surrealism, 1924–Today’ at London’s Richard Saltoun gallery examines the role of desire in the avant-garde movement
-
New members’ club Beihouse revives Beirut’s architectural heritageFollowing the devastating 2020 explosion, three 19th-century homes in Gemmayzeh become a social hub balancing cultural memory with contemporary luxury
-
Villa One at the One & Only Palmilla — Los Cabos, Mexico -
Martim — Wroclaw, Poland -
Tattersalls Hotel — Armidale, Australia -
KLoé Hotel — Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -
Casa Hoyos — San Miguel de Allende, Mexico -
Littlenap — Hangzhou, China -
Casa Santa Teresa — Corsica, France
