In its heyday, the Bus Palladium was frequented by Salvador Dali and Serge Gainsbourg. Now a team of nightlife impresarios is staging a renaissance.
I’m in a red-velvet restaurant booth in the louche Parisian quarter of Pigalle. Above, a light well with the perspective-defying power of a James Turrell Skyspace tops bare concrete walls and a blue-tinted mirror. Below, the plush carpet is a riot of Ottoman motifs and the tables are set with simple white taper candles.
Post dinner (smoked white asparagus salad and mushroom vol au vent), the night could go two ways. Downstairs, a good time beckons under a disco ball in the basement nightclub. Upstairs is the lure of a good night’s rest in my deluxe room on the fourth floor.
