Voyage Samaritaine, the magnificent club restaurant under the new store’s art nouveau glass ceiling

The reopening of La Samaritaine is breathtaking. The sleeping beauty is waking up in tip-top shape and makes us understand it during the press brief. We have been welcomed under the historic monument’s glass ceiling, on the last and 5^th floor, in the club area, proudly showing its name from the very lift on the ground floor: Voyage Samaritaine.

“Voyage is a word shaking our senses up”, we are told. And this is no lie. The historic murals surrounding the glass ceiling are so beautiful they leave us speechless. As for the Art Nouveau staircase, it is fascinating. Everything is inordinate, such as the big bar held by incredibly talented bartender Matthias Giroud, and the wall of bottles showing the way to the lounge area in the gourmet restaurant. Cars, the department store visitors, on the 5^th floor seem so far away. Paris is a moving party!

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This time bubble offers us to make the most of life, to “roam from a bar to a restaurant”. This is what we do. Voyage opens from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. to have a drink, a pre-dinner drink, or an eclectic lunch. Why eclectic you wonder? The on-site chef, Mathieu Viannay (La Mère Brazier) serves mosaic dishes in a structured mishmash. Grilled cheese sandwiches twisted with wagyu beef, alright, some salmon pizzetta with extra caviar, the chef can do it. More into pâté en croute? The chefs have it, thanks to the menu shining a light on 40 dishes between French cuisine staples and exceptional produces.

It seems they are thumbling their noses to their neighbor, Le Cheval Blanc, aiming at being a Parisian palace and they got an entire section of La Samaritaine. On the last floor, Le Cheval Blanc will come up with the Langosteria, a terrace restaurant with panoramic views on the Parisian roofs, serving sea-inspired dishes that made the fame of the Langosteria in Italy. On the first floor, Cheval Blanc Saint-Tropez 3-Michelin-star chef Arnaud Donckele will take the helm.

The restaurant war has started in La Samaritaine.