This Saturday was the last night of the pop up Cointreau Prive cocktail bar at the exclusive Hotel Particulier Montmartre in Paris' 18th arrondissement. The bar opened its doors a month previously to celebrate the birthday of burlesque star Dita von Teese, the bar's figurehead, and was accessible only for members who had subscribed via the website and received a special bracelet in order to gain entry. The secretive vibe was further enhanced by the location of the Hotel, hidden behind cast iron gates in a Montmartre backstreet up a flight of steps from which I caught the glorious view of the Eiffel Tower flashing its search light onto a crescent moon.
The hotel had been done up in a boudoir style by Ms von Teese for the occasion with swathes of red velvet and brocade fabric draped over the furniture and the suites were all opened up so that you could have a drink whilst perched on a divan, a bath or a bed. The list of Cointreau cocktails on offer included a Cointreau Teese made with apple, cointreau and violet sirop, and a menu of small bites was also available.
Did you make it to check out Cointreau Prive? What did you think?
of course, i went a couple of times to satisfy my curiousity!
ReplyDeleteOne thing that i really liked about it was that it was spread over several different floors with different rooms and corners to choose from. The drinks (IMO) were fine (to be more precise alternating between fine and good depending on which ones and when) But the draw at this place was the whole combination of location/exclusivity/drinks/people/burlesque connections, not just the cocktails. While I wouldn't go all the time if it were a constant Paris fixture, i was glad to have checked it out and enjoyed the evening for what it was!
i did indeed. i thought it was a great marketing scheme, seeing as how Cointreau is looking to revamp it's image as an aging liquer. i think its very exclusivity made it more of an attraction than the cocktails. and of course the location and the fact that every floor had a different vibe to it made it easy to change settings when it got a little repetitive.
ReplyDeletewhat i did find strange was that given the limited seating, people were still allowed to call in and reserve 8-10 seats at a time, which to me defeated the purpose of letting people explore the concept of the Privé. ah well.
Are those your photos, Kim?? Gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Amy! Yes, pretty much all the photos on the blog are by my own fair hand (apart from on the older posts). X
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, Forest and M! I agree that it was fun but probably good it was only a temporary thing...
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