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Experimental Group hotels
Cocktail bars come first, carrying their social rhythm into hotels with good restaurants attached.
Experimental Group carries the sociability and attention to drinks of a good cocktail bar into restaurants and hotels. It began with Experimental Cocktail Club in Paris in 2007, founded by three childhood friends from Montpellier, and grew into a collection reaching from London and Venice to Ibiza, Verbier, and the English countryside.
11 Experimental Group hotels in 5 countries on the Luxury Hotels Atlas, each placed on the six LHA Tiers.
- Founded by Olivier Bon, Pierre-Charles Cros and Romée de Goriainoff
- Worldwide: 12-plus hotels across France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland, alongside numerous standalone bars and restaurants
- On the atlas: 4 Core Luxury, 7 Accessible Luxury
History
Experimental grew from a successful Paris cocktail bar into wine bars, restaurants, and then hotels. The founders’ friendship remained part of the decision-making as the collection reached other countries. That origin helps explain why drinks, food, and sociable spaces continue to feel integral to its hotels.
Timeline
- 2007 — Olivier Bon, Pierre-Charles Cros, and Romée de Goriainoff open the Experimental Cocktail Club on Rue Saint-Sauveur in Paris's Montorgueil district, sparking the city's craft cocktail revival.
- 2010 — Xavier Padovani joins the group as it opens its first venue outside Paris, the Experimental Cocktail Club in London's Chinatown.
- 2015 — Grand Pigalle Hotel opens in Paris, the group's first hotel, built around a courtyard restaurant and rooftop cocktail bar.
- 2017–2018 — Henrietta Hotel opens in London's Covent Garden and Hotel des Grands Boulevards opens in Paris's 2nd arrondissement, expanding the format.
- 2020–2021 — Experimental Marais opens in Paris's Marais district and Sinner Paris follows, both designed with the group's now-signature blend of heritage architecture and contemporary interiors.
- 2023–2024 — Montesol Experimental in Ibiza (a 1933 heritage building) joins the group in 2023, and Experimental Chalet Val d'Isère opens in the French Alps in 2024, extending the brand into ski country.
The houses to know
- Henrietta Hotel, London, United Kingdom — A 40-room townhouse hotel in Covent Garden, the group's first foray outside France, named for the 17th-century queen the surrounding streets are named after.
- Il Palazzo Experimental, Venice, Italy — A 16th-century Venetian Gothic palazzo on the Giudecca Canal, once the private residence of flour magnate Giovanni Stucky before it became the headquarters of the Adriatica shipping line.
- Regina Experimental, Biarritz, France — A 1906 Belle Époque landmark on the Basque coast's cliffs, with a 15-metre atrium and an Eiffel-workshop glass roof, requisitioned by German troops in the Second World War before its 1950s restoration.
- Experimental Marais, Paris, France — A 40-room hotel in the heart of the Marais, the historic Jewish and LGBT-nightlife quarter that gives the neighborhood its name.
- Hotel des Grands Boulevards, Paris, France — A 50-room hotel with a glass-roofed winter garden, on the covered-arcade boulevard where 19th-century Paris invented the department store.
- Cowley Manor Experimental, Cowley, United Kingdom — A Grade II-listed manor on land once exchanged by Edward the Confessor for the ground beneath Westminster Abbey, local legend holds that Lewis Carroll drew on its gardens while writing Alice in Wonderland.
- Grand Pigalle Hotel, Paris, France — The group's first hotel, 37 rooms above a courtyard restaurant and rooftop bar in the once-disreputable Pigalle district the founders helped gentrify.
- Experimental Chalet Verbier, Verbier, Switzerland — The Verbier chalet brings the group’s bar-and-restaurant approach to an Alpine ski stay.
- Experimental Chalet Val d'Isère, Val-d'Isère, France — A former hotel called L'Aigle des Neiges, reborn as the group's largest property, 113 rooms built around designer Dorothée Meilichzon's invented "ski coating," a plaster finish that mimics the carved snow tracks on the Face de Bellevarde.
- Menorca Experimental, Menorca, Spain — The group's Balearic outpost on Menorca, the quieter island neighbor to Ibiza and Mallorca, extending the Experimental format into Spain's calmest Mediterranean archipelago.
Newest openings
- Experimental Chalet Val d'Isère — Val-d'Isère, France — opened 2024.
Opening next
- A hotel in Rome designed by Parisian architect Rodolphe Parente is in development.
Every Experimental Group hotel on the atlas
France
- Experimental Marais — Paris · Core Luxury
- Regina Experimental — Biarritz · Core Luxury
- Experimental Chalet Val d'Isère — Val-d'Isère · Accessible Luxury
- Grand Pigalle Hotel — Paris · Accessible Luxury
- Hotel des Grands Boulevards — Paris · Accessible Luxury
Spain
- Menorca Experimental — Menorca · Accessible Luxury
- Montesol Experimental, Ibiza — Ibiza · Accessible Luxury
United Kingdom
- Henrietta Hotel — London · Core Luxury
- Cowley Manor Experimental — Cowley · Accessible Luxury
Italy
- Il Palazzo Experimental — Venice · Core Luxury
Switzerland
- Experimental Chalet Verbier — Verbier · Accessible Luxury
Open The Maison in the atlas for Experimental Group's full dossier, with prices and maps.