Style on Ice in the 18 ème: Kube Hotel, Paris

FrommerLuxuryTravel Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer

It is a place you must discover. You won’t come across it in an ad. Perhaps you'll overhear people talking about it, or maybe someone you know will tell you about it.  But even with an address, you’ll find it hard to find. Our taxi driver drove down Passage Ruelle, stopped at the end of the street, turned and said, “There is no hotel here.” He was about to take us back to where we came from when a man came running up and tapped on the window. “Are you looking for the Kube?” he asked and gestured back towards the middle of the block where we could make out an old building behind a stone wall.

Off-the-beaten-path would hardly begin to describe the locale, a dense, largely working-class community in the 18th arrondissement where many immigrants from Africa, India, and the Middle East have settled. Tourists rarely venture to this neighborhood on the northern edge of Paris which -- albeit a walking distance from Montmartre -- has none of the monuments or museums, haute couture boutiques or haute cuisine restaurants that would earn it mention in a Paris guide.

And yet, the 41-room Kube has become one hot destination. Or maybe cool would be more appropriate. Cool as in cold, cold as in ice, ice as in the Ice Bar -- the first in Paris. Patrons who wish to inhale the rarified air climb the swirling stairway to a mezzanine level that overlooks the restaurant/bar below, pass through a gallery lined with photographs of Innuits where they are outfitted with parkas, gloves and caps, take a deep breath, and step into a frozen ice-blue fantasia.

Before them, a hexagon-shaped bar made of enormous ice cubes and adorned with graceful icicles is serving Grey Goose vodka in glasses made of ice, and cubes in the shape of armchairs are facing a "fire in ice" spectacle of flames emanating from a great ice mirror. Visitors have thirty minutes to sit before the fire or hang out at the bar, carve their initials in the ice, and listen to music wafting through the frozen air while the rays of the spectrum filter through the glassy ice.

A truly adventurous couple might opt to spend the night in the Ice Bedroom next door where they can snuggle under blankets of fur on a bed of ice enclosed by transparent walls of ice weighing ten tons and sculpted by the renowned ice-sculptor Michael Amman. Most visitors, however, after their half hour in the Ice Bar, exit down to the more temperate climes of the restaurant/bar below where hip, if less hardy, Kube clientele gather every evening to drink and dine accompanied by the selections of Dan Adrien, a man of far-reaching and eclectic tastes.

At the same time, video screens at either end of the bar draw the eye with repeated sequences. There is the animated penguin skating across a field of ice or opening a refrigerator door to reveal a dancing ice cube that soon begins to melt. And there are abstract designs: the computer chip that morphs into a geometric construct that opens like a flower and endlessly re-forms in psychedelic kaleidoscopic patterns.

The images would be trance-inducing except that the live-action scene is even more compelling. It is a lively mix of artists and writers, people from the worlds of fashion, broadcasting, and entertainment who regularly schlep up to this unlikely, out-of-the-way neighborhood to partake of the Kube experience: the Ice Bar, the Sound and Light displays, the interesting range of drinks, the excellent brasserie-style fare, the "pousspouce" ("push--push") menu of tasty combinations like croustillant with tomatoes and mozzarella, or chicken and curry sauce on a push-up pop, as well as a host of  special events like the popular "Girly Wednesday" when the sound booth is turned over to a woman for the mid-week night. Generally a well-known singer, television or film personality, or professional DJ, she does the selecting, spinning and mixing and decides what Kube will sound like on a particular night.

On Sundays, the culmination of on-going showings by artists of the avant-garde takes place. Through the week, a participating artist's works will be on display in the restaurant/lounge. Come Sunday, he or she will meet up with patrons for the "Arty Brunch," an informal encounter where thoughts about the showcased art or the larger art scene are shared over such delicacies as tuna tartar and Viennese pastries in a specially designed buffet.

Nothing at Kube is ordinary.

Everything is extraordinary.  

When the hotel took part in the annual autumn Art Vida, it was with a group of video artists who projected their works on the white walls of guest rooms and the courtyard fronting the hotel.  An original program in the city-wide art exhibition, it drew people who had never been in the neighborhood before let alone heard about a high-style hotel up there.

If all this makes for quite a story, there is an even larger story behind it that began in 2003 when Jérôme Foucaud, a young hotelier from St. Trôpez, came up to Paris with the idea of creating an urban destination that would defy the expected. That was Murano Urban Resort which opened in Marais the following year. A stunning study in white with technological accents not seen in Marais before, Murano swiftly became a favored site for fashion shoots and a gathering ground for the cognescenti. Kube followed in late 2005; Murano Resort-Marrakech (Morocco) in 2008. A fourth property on the site of an old hospital in St. Trôpez is on the way.  

A common style and attitude runs through the properties of the small but singular brand: Murano Hotels and Resort Group. They share a stark, neo-modern décor, high-tech features, a pop-art sensibility and a luxuriousness that never precludes playfulness. Futuristic on the inside (in lieu of room keys, the Murano and Kube make use of guests' fingerprints), they are anchored in traditional locales and undistinguished or formerly abandoned buildings.

A culture has emerged among the people who make up a team that the laid back and soft-spoken but insightful Jérôme Foucaud has assembled.  They are young, energetic, and charismatic. The sense they convey of being in on something special is palpable. Many move from one property to another. All have a story to tell of how they came to be part of this legend in the making.

DJ Dan Adrien is  Jérôme's childhood friend from the French Alps. Lorris Camarzana, whom we met at Murano several years ago, was hired after writing to Jérôme that he understood "the spirit of the place of dreams." Still in his 20s, he seemed more serious and mature when he joined us for dinner at Kube and talked about the new project in St. Trôpez where he was headed the next day.

"Many famous people come to Kube," he added, turning to the subject at hand with the authority of a man who has assumed greater responsibilities. "Especially in the fashion world. It’s not only a hotel. It’s the bar, the restaurant, the ice bar. There is life here."

The tall and fair-skinned Marie Eve Foulier with luminous dark eyes and long black hair that falls over her shoulders is Kube's press and events manager. Years before she and Jérôme had worked at the same hotel in St. Trôpez. "Before he left, he organized a party and invited all the staff to say goodbye," she.told us. "I stayed until the end of the evening when he told everyone 'I’m opening a new hotel in Paris called the Murano,' and he gave out cards."

She continued, "Two years later, when I realized it was time for me to move to Paris and get on with my communications career, I found his card and sent him an e-mail. And he wrote back to me saying 'Okay, come to Paris and maybe we can think of something.'

"I took the train from Toulon, a four hour ride just for one interview. We talked a lot, and at the end, he said, 'Okay now I’m going to tell you.  I’m going to open another hotel. Maybe I’ll need someone with your qualifications. Let me think about it because it’s still too early.'

"Less than a month later, he called me. And I started at Kube."

"But we also want to extend ourselves to be part of the community, to participate in what goes on around us," she added. "Here in the 18th arrondissement, there are many Indian people who celebrate a special festival in the fall. They wear traditional costumes and walk around through the streets. Last year we didn’t know about it. We only found out when our guests couldn’t get to the hotel because of all the traffic. But this year we will celebrate it with a special party."

Photos by Harvey Frommer

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