Brasserie Excelsior: a brewer’s showcase

He wanted a showcase. Moreau picked the station district and commissioned a hotel there, with a luxury café for his beers on the ground floor. Two architects designed it, Lucien Weissenburger and Alexandre Mienville. The room opened in February 1911, at carnival time.

Outside, nothing hints at the party. The pale stone rises straight up, story after story, and balustraded balconies stack up on the corner. At the very top, two pinnacles stand against the sky, linked by a scalloped stone beam. Only the red awnings above the windows mark the entrance.

Inside, everything curves. The ceiling hollows into honey-colored vaults, and wherever they come down, fern fiddleheads uncurl in relief. Iron chandeliers hang from them; their glass tulip shades, made by Daum, range from yellow to orange. The brasserie had three hundred lights.

Wood and glass follow the same plant. The furniture came from the Majorelle workshops: Cuban mahogany, dark and red between the white tablecloths. Jacques Gruber designed the stained-glass windows, where the ferns return, with pines and ginkgo leaves, in amber glass that lets the street show through faintly. Potted palms reach up to the vaults.

The showcase was nearly smashed. In the 1970s the station district was rebuilt, the Tour Thiers went up, and the Excelsior was threatened with demolition. It was classified as a monument historique in 1976: the façades, the roofs, the room and its decoration. Beer is still served there, under the ferns.