The team behind Paris café-bistro Le Cornichon has opened Le Poisson Volant, a restaurant and nightclub at 5 Rue Marguerite Moret in the 11th arrondissement. Dinner is served every day from 7pm to midnight, and from Thursday to Saturday the whole venue turns into a club that stays open until 5am.
Founders Bertrand Chauveau and Paul Henri, friends since childhood, took over the former L’International, a well-known rock and punk venue on the edge of Oberkampf, Belleville and Ménilmontant. They wanted a late-night place where people could eat, talk and dance around a table, and they intend the space to change according to how guests use it. Their references included Brilliant Corners in Dalston, the former China Chalet in New York and, closer to home, the Chinese restaurants of Belleville and the 13th arrondissement, including their favourite, La Bénédiction.
In the kitchen, Chauveau, who trained at Ferrandi and worked with Jean-François Piège and David Toutain, is joined by chef Yanxin Yin. Originally from Tsingtao, Yin studied in Xi’an and Lanzhou, specialising in noodles, dumplings and Peking duck, before working with Bao Family in France. The menu includes pork and chive potstickers, steamed aubergine with chilli and herbs, chicken braised with vin jaune and black mushrooms, and wontons filled with pig’s trotter alongside langoustine tartare.
Claves Architecture, led by Laure Gravier and Soizic Fougeront, kept a frontage that recalls a traditional Chinese restaurant but rebuilt the interior. A new grid of columns and beams nods to Brutalism and the area’s industrial past, mirrors extend the sightlines, and silver Art Deco patterns cover the walls. Seating includes high-backed chairs inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, gathered around an oval bar in patinated steel. The studio describes the result as “an imaginary Shanghai by night”, with a mood borrowed from the films of Wong Kar-wai.
A commissioned work by Chinese artist Shuo Hao follows the staircase down to the basement club, where an aquarium of mineral compositions conceals a private room. With no daylight below, luminous ceiling panels by Matière Noire set the tone, and lighting shifts from a soft glow at dinner to strobes once the DJs start. The founders select the music themselves and plan residencies with figures from the Paris scene, alongside guest artists and DJs. Acoustics specialists FLEiK worked on the sound so that quality stays consistent across both floors, which are designed to function together.
