The standard villa and glass eating room at Villa Rene Lalique
For 100 years, Lalique has been admired for its beautiful jewellery, perfumes and collections of crystal and glass—the cactus tables, the Bacchantes vases, the colourful cabochon rings—which continues to be produced by a group of extremely expert artisans in its authentic glassworks in Alsace, France. What’s much less recognized is that Maison Lalique can also be expert at a selected form of jewel field hospitality.
That’s most on show in its flagship lodge, Villa René Lalique, which was constructed by the unique artist and founder in 1920 as a generally household dwelling close to his manufacturing unit. (It will also be stated to be celebrating its centenary, if you happen to determine that the pandemic years didn’t actually matter.) After a lavish renovation, it opened as a six-suite lodge, and was shortly welcomed into Relais & Château and awarded one after which two Michelin stars.
There is no such thing as a forgetting that you just’re within the dwelling of Lalique. The design was finished with absolute dedication—there may be stylized glass and crystal in every single place: the cactus tables within the lounge, the closet handles and drawer pulls within the bedrooms, the spirits decanters within the bar, the beautiful chandelier within the eating rooms. Within the palms of a much less expert designer, it might have been cheesy, too excessive.
A photograph of René Lalique within the lounge
However designers Woman Tina Inexperienced and Pietro Mingarelli nailed it. Every of the suites is totally different, each in format and in design, impressed by considered one of Lalique’s signature items. The Rose Suite has a pastel colour palette and numerous incarnations of the flower. The Dragon Suite is outfitted in midnight blue and has a big balcony with a view over the park, and the Hirondelles Suite (French for “swallows”) is clad in a ruby pink that matches the enduring birds and bunches of grapes on the ornamental panels within the bathtub.
There’s sufficient Lalique that you just nearly don’t want to go to the close by Lalique Museum. However you do. The museum shows items from the artist’s total profession, from the nature-inspired Artwork Nouveau jewellery to current collaborations with modern artists like Arik Levy and Damien Hirst.
It’s placing to note how at-home glassware from the Twenties and ’30s can be at a Twenty first-century banquet. It’s additionally value contemplating how René Lalique all the time dedicated to creating fairly issues accessible to as many individuals as attainable, not solely aristocrats. That’s why he used glass as a major medium, and why he favored to say, “Higher to hunt magnificence than flaunt luxurious.”
The eating room
That stated, the lodge isn’t shy about being luxurious. The lounge is anchored by an Artwork Deco bar with signature exotic-leather barstools and a show of carafes that Lalique has developed in partnerships with Hardy cognac, the Macallan whiskey, Beluga vodka and Patrón tequila.
The wine cellar, below the path of award-winning sommelier Romain Iltis, is a hovering area designed by Mario Botta with greater than 12,000 bottles on show in artfully lit cupboards. Damien Hirst’s crystal butterflies line the hall, and the cellar itself is regarded over by a large-than-life bust of René Lalique, with sugar flowers behind, made by pastry chef Nicolas Multon in collaboration with Josiane Ruez, a lost-wax mannequin maker and designer on the Lalique manufacturing unit.
Botta additionally designed the eating room, the place Austrian chef Paul Stradner presents his ingenious, colourful tasting menus. Like nearly any two-star chef today, he attracts closely on seasonal greens from the kitchen backyard—the colourful freshness of his carrot dish is spectacular—in entrance of the lodge and really native elements from close by producers.
A dish of leeks and cheese within the restaurant
Within the spirit of doing issues with absolute dedication, the nine-course signature menu, named for René Lalique, consists of such dishes as a “excellent egg” with nut-brown butter, caviar and salmon trout with dashi mousse, and a tempered carabinero prawn with cream, fir buds and white turnip. The equally lavish, vegetable-forward Terroir Menu, could be totally vegetarian, will get simply as a lot care—he says he notably enjoys creating the dish of chickpeas with lemon, yogurt and curry.
Simply as Stradner is aware of that they strong taste of a vegetable plucked straight from their earth could be their very own luxurious, the homeowners perceive that generally nature could be the best luxurious of all. They emphasize the lodge’s forest environment and its location close to the Northern Vosges Regional Nature Park, with its climbing and biking trails.
They usually lately launched forest sophrology, a type of souped-up model of forest bathing, which additionally consists of workout routines like strolling barefoot and blindfolded via the timber, aware tasting and out of doors meditation. It’s a wonderful complement to the precision that emerges from the manufacturing unit and decorates the lodge.
