Au Top, rooftop restaurant Paris - Le Marais

REV has been committed from Jean Philippe Nikogossian, the owner of mythic Parisian

bar La Perle, to design his new restaurant at the top of an iconic building in Le

Marais district.

Our approach was to create a place able to drive the future clients to choose this place,

poetizing the staying and the view over this magic Parisian landscape.

Referred to Italo Calvino masterpiece “The baron in the trees”, our aim was to

define a place in the hart of the City and at the same time outside the City: the

perfect place to welcome the always-increasing number of reality deserters…

The access to the restaurant is passing trough the public circulation of the existing

building until the 5th floor. A metal mesh door in the entry defines a visual diaphragm

that present the name and the logo of the restaurant playing with a kinetic effect.

Inside the space, a mirror ceiling amplifies the height of the space as a pledge of infinity

taking a drink and waiting for the table, expecting for the access to the terrace at

the top floor.

We have selected materials to define a “sophisticated brutalism” aesthetic: precious

and rare materials enriching raw surfaces, heritage of construction works.

Architecture as the approach of the opposites.

Mirror and brushed stainless steel, metal mesh, concrete floor…a precious carpet in

Rain Forest stone leads us to the 6th floor, the restaurant terrace.

Landed on the restaurant terrace, the view over Paris is like a wave that rise smoothly

revealing all the city hotspot, that everybody discover as if it were the first time: le

Panthéon, le Centre Pompidou, la Tour St. Jacques, l’Opéra Bastille, Montmartre. An

ephemeral architecture gives shelter and comfort to the restaurant. As a convertible car,

a system of sliding curtain layers allows to close or completely open the space. They

protect the clients from the sun and bad weather and fix on their transparent surface

the innocent and sensitive traces of the Parisian nights: the nightlights, a drop of water,

the ambiguity between transparency and reflection.

Two slender green lines defined in one side by the counter and in the opposite side by

the tables visually amplify the dimension of the space, in continuity with the stone

finish of the staircase and the same material : the Green Forest marble, a warm and

precious hybrid in between vegetal and mineral words.

The chairs are a tribute to an icon of french design, Robert Mallet Stevens.

They becomes almost alive on a beautiful large board’s wooden floor.

A dense and sheltering vegetation surrounds the perimeter of the terrace:

the gaze is lost in the city wonder, the line of the horizon feels sparkling.