Matsuri, Paris XVI - 2024 

Matsuri, the icon of Japanese sit-down dining, announces the rebranding of its restaurant on rue Victor Hugo in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The restaurant has been completely redesigned by designer Rudy Guénaire. 

The 200m2 restaurant has been conceived as a canteen straight out of past dreams of a future world. You eat alongside your partner(s), facing the Kaiten (the famous conveyor belt) on which the delicious, freshly prepared Californian Rolls wind (the menu has been completely redesigned). The Kaiten's furniture borrows its curves and obliques from the gentle modernism of California, which was fascinated by Japan at the time. The small chairs, designed for the project, are a sexy, sturdy version of the hundreds of broken-down seats on which we sat in all the Izakaya of Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. 

In the evening, the light is almost twilight. The ceiling, made of rectangular domes of ultra-thick polycarbonate, is a nod to the thousand neon lights in Blade Runner, and reflects the soft glow of a sunset that will never fade on the rough concrete walls, covered with old Japanese posters. 

© Photos : Ludovic Balay