54 THE WORLD OF HOSPITALITY
THE DORCHESTER
Images: Ed Reeve or Pierre Monetta
Alain Ducasse at
The Dorchester, London
Hotel
More than a decade on, Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Thirteen years ago when Jouin and Manku began guests to a special and intimate world apart. The
Manku of Jouin Manku have revisited their to develop their concept for Alain Ducasse at The result was an interior that was contemporary and
seminal design for the three Michelin starred Dorchester, they took their inspiration from the refined and which subtly brought the park inside
restaurant, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, great expanse of Hyde Park which the restaurant through decorative wall and lighting treatments
revitalising the original concept with a touch of overlooks and Alain Ducasse’s own vision of a and a simple palette that included oak, zinc and
magic and sparkle and enhancing the dramatic ‘Table Lumière’, a luminous semi-private table in cotton, with the shimmering installation of the
theatre of the experience. the middle of the restaurant that would transport Table Lumière as its central feature.
Returning to the project, Jouin and Manku
noticed how the character of Mayfair, classic
and refined, now seemed to have another strand
of energy to it that was younger and more
modern, particularly with the stronger presence
of fashion, and they wondered how they could
inject more of that feeling of fashion and glamour
into the restaurant’s elegant interior as well
as bringing more of the sparkle and luminosity
of the Table Lumière out into the rest of the
restaurant. Taking inspiration from the idea of
a rich atmosphere of fog or a mist through the
park and those magical moments in which objects
appear and disappear, they began to explore how
this atmosphere could drift into the restaurant
itself, bringing with it a little more magic and
drama.