In the vibrant landscape of Paris’s 11th arrondissement, a new venue has opened its doors, promising to blur the lines between refined dining and nocturnal escapism. Located at 5–7 rue Marguerite-Moret, Le Poisson Volant officially welcomed its first guests on October 2nd. Conceived as a chameleon-like space where an intimate dinner gradually surrenders to the pulsing rhythms of a nightclub, the venue occupies the former site of L’International, a well-known neighborhood music hub. Behind its striking spatial transformation is the Parisian interior architecture studio Claves, founded by Laure Gravier and Soizic Fougeront.
The project represents a creative reunion for its core team. Le Poisson Volant was brought to life by Bertrand Chauveau and Paul Henri—the founders of the nearby restaurant Le Cornichon—in close collaboration with chef Yanxin Yin. Having previously partnered with Gravier and Fougeront on Le Cornichon, the founders once again entrusted Claves with shaping the physical identity of their latest venture. The result is a sprawling, two-level environment that bridges architectural rigor with cinematic nostalgia, drawing conceptual inspiration from legendary international nightlife spots like New York City’s former China Chalet, a Financial District staple celebrated for its dual life as a Chinese restaurant and a late-night gathering destination.
Brutalist Structure Meets Decorative Details
Stepping inside Le Poisson Volant reveals an interior landscape defined by a bold collision of scales and textures. Claves completely reorganized the layout around a newly established framework of exposed columns and beams. Taking strong cues from Brutalist architecture as well as the industrial heritage of its surrounding Parisian neighborhood, the studio established a rigid, geometry-driven architecture across both floors. Yet, this heavy foundational structure is intentionally softened and complicated by slender decorative lines, highly reflective surfaces, and meticulous detailing.
Large mirrors are strategically integrated into the architectural grid throughout the venue. Rather than simply serving a functional purpose, these reflective panes visually extend sightlines across the interior, creating an optical illusion that makes the rooms stretch far beyond their actual physical boundaries.
On the ground floor, a massive oval bar fashioned from patinated steel commands the center of the space. It is enveloped by plush, built-in banquettes and moody, dark purple-brown walls that absorb ambient light. Patterned carpeting introduces a tactile layer underfoot, while tall, high-backed chairs—subtly nodding to the iconic furniture designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh—inject an unexpected silhouette of delicate craftsmanship into the otherwise heavy architectural envelope. Tracing across the walls and structural columns are silver-painted geometric motifs. These delicate flourishes evoke a dialogue between traditional Chinese decorative patterns and classic Art Deco ornamentation, setting a sophisticated tone before the night even begins.
A Cinematic Interior Inspired by Wong Kar-wai
The visual narrative of Le Poisson Volant runs deeper than standard contemporary hospitality design, finding its atmospheric soul in the saturated color palettes and moody framing of filmmaker Wong Kar-wai. The architects heavily referenced the director’s distinct cinematic language, particularly his fascination with confined spaces, romantic melancholy, and the interplay of light and shadow caught in mirrors.
Within the restaurant, dark surfaces purposefully swallow illumination, while mirrors capture fleeting fragments of adjacent rooms and seated guests. Underneath a wash of deep red and crimson lighting, the venue adopts a mysterious character. It feels suspended outside of conventional time and space, evoking an imaginary, rain-slicked Shanghai by night.
This sense of theatrical ambiguity is further reinforced by custom artistic touches integrated directly into the fabric of the building. Hand-painted mirrors introduce delicate illustrated details into the heavy architecture, while a repeating ceiling grid establishes a measured, rhythmic cadence overhead. Despite its heavy reliance on dramatic, cinematic effects, the underlying architectural framework remains rigorously legible, anchoring the surreal atmosphere in solid design principles.
An Aquarium Conceals a Private Room Downstairs
The journey between the venue’s two levels is treated as an intentional spatial transition. Connecting the ground-floor dining room to the subterranean club space below is a staircase accompanied by a monumental diptych. Commissioned specifically for Le Poisson Volant, the large-scale artwork by Chinese artist Shuo Hao introduces its own narrative imagery to the descent, marking the clear threshold between the upper restaurant and the darker, more subterranean energy waiting downstairs.
Upon reaching the lower level, visitors discover a compact, immersive world optimized for nightlife. The basement houses the venue’s DJ booth alongside an exclusive private room. Intriguingly, this intimate space is entirely concealed behind a glowing, vibrant aquarium filled with intricate mineral compositions. Inspired in part by the boundary-pushing aquarium installations of contemporary artist Pierre Huyghe, this feature acts as an unconventional architectural partition. Its illuminated contents radiate a soft glow through the glass, casting rippling reflections across the surrounding surfaces and further detaching the basement from the realities of the Parisian street outside.
Lighting and Sound Shape the Transition into Night
The true magic of Le Poisson Volant lies in its temporal transformation, orchestrated largely through sophisticated lighting and sound engineering. The lighting design, developed in close collaboration with Paris-based studio Matière Noire, serves as the primary mechanism for shifting the room’s identity as the evening wears on.
During the early evening dining hours, large illuminated ceiling panels integrated directly into the overhead grid cast a soft, diffuse, and welcoming glow across the dining room. As dinner service winds down and the clock approaches 11:00 PM, the atmosphere shifts dramatically. The lighting becomes sharper, more focused, and heavily saturated, altering the mood of the room without requiring a single physical reconfiguration of the furniture.
Working in tandem with the lighting is a custom sound design crafted by FLEiK. As music takes precedence and the volume steadily rises, Le Poisson Volant successfully pivots into its second life as a late-night club on selected evenings. The exact same columns, mirrored walls, and banquettes that framed a quiet dinner service now pulse under dynamic lighting, accommodating an entirely different rhythm of nightlife within the very same footprint. Through this careful balancing act of architecture, lighting, and sound, Claves has crafted a hybrid hospitality space capable of telling two distinct stories within a single evening.
