An Exhibition of UFO Art Lands in Idaho
Seen from Paris’s Pont de la Tournelle, the eight-story facade of the landmark restaurant La Tour d’Argent looks about the same as it did when its third-generation owner André Terrail grew up there in the 1980s, deploying toy parachutists into quayside traffic. But the interior is no longer indifferent to the 21st century: Late last month, La Tour d’Argent reopened its doors after a yearlong renovation led by the Paris-based architect Franklin Azzi. “It’s my Tour,” says Terrail, who took over following his father’s death in 2006. “The same, but more exacting, more thoughtful.” The new look draws on the outsize history of the classically French fine-dining institution, which has been serving diners since 1582, taking particular inspiration from the streamlined motifs of its Art Deco era. On the seventh floor, the redesigned restaurant — overseen since 2020 by executive chef Yannick Franques — functions more than ever as a theater. The airy dining room, in shades of indigo and silver, looks onto an open-plan kitchen and an elevated platform where the restaurant’s signature pressed-duck dish is prepared nightly. Upstairs and downstairs are new bars suited to less formal occasions: Le Bar des Maillets d’Argent, an all-day lounge with a fireplace, andLe Toit de la Tour, a rooftop terrace. Given that it has the welcoming air of a boutique hotel, it’s no wonder that the building can now host overnight visitors in a private apartment on the fifth floor, complete with a touch of Scandinavian-style minimalism attributable, in part, to Terrail’s Finnish mother.