HOUSE OF THE WEEK

An abundance of space at FMI City

Le Planteur experiments with taste

Restaurateur, Mr Boris Grange, opens a tin containing tea at Le Planteur Restaurant. Not one to follow the crowd, Mr Grange has made many changes to the restaurant in the past few months, most notably, the creation of the Boris Lounge. Pics: Christopher DavyThe hand crafted chairs in the Boris Lounge feature shoes as feet, just one of many clever details.

IN the half-light of Le Planteur’s wine cellar the sound of snapping wood and tearing tissue paper can be heard. Mr Boris Grange, the restaurateur, is on what might be called a “wine trip”; not an exotic voyage to some far flung vineyard or winery but the process by which someone who knows a lot about wine tries passionately to teach the uneducated; the person who enjoys a glass but might baulk at buying anything better than a bottle of Jacob’s Creek, 2008 vintage, obviously.

Is it the names that are unnerving: Pétrus, Mouton Rothschild, Haut Brion or Mr Grange’s company? He delivers an intense monologue, his voice low, in reverence perhaps for the liquid gems he is liberating from stuffy wooden boxes or perhaps because he fears too much noise could create trepidation, the dreaded killer of wine.

Things have moved quickly at Le Planteur in the past year; the underused bar has been replaced by a bordello-style members club, an impressive wine cellar has been installed below ground and the old wine storage room is brimming with luxury teas imported from France.

“What I see is that people are more and more interested to try new things,” says Mr Grange, who prefers to be known as Boris, about the growing interest Le Planteur customers are expressing in fine wines. “They understand that coming to Le Planteur is a place where you discover.”

This may seem a little trite but at Le Planteur it’s easy to get lured in by the promise of a refined experience free from pomp. At the root of this is Mr Grange, who despite his knowledge talks as if he too is just beginning to understand the rich complexity of what he calls “big” wines – the expensive ones, usually from France – and the wine business in general.

In the new tea cellar the shelves are lined with large green and red tins, each containing a different variety or blend of tea, sourced from all over the world. Unlike wine, you need only pop off the lid of a tin and plunge your nose in to get a sense of what you might be in for. There is surely a tea for any occasion, for example, a sweet green tea mixed with dandelions seems perfect for a refreshing iced drink on a summer’s day, while a smoked Earl Grey conjures up thoughts of a winter breakfast. Unsurprisingly, the perfectly consistent Japanese green teas would seem to dissuade casual drinking, demanding your full attention for the reward of restrained satisfaction.

Although tea sales have yet to take off, Mr Grange is hoping that customers will come to appreciate both the richness of his collection, and from a business angle, tea’s potential as an inexpensive but quality gift.

In the new Boris Lounge, Mr Granges sits on a fluffy chair with black and white dappled cowhide motif. The room is over the top decadent, with bright red chairs and matching wooden feet with painted shoes and laces, a wall-sized mirror in a bright red frame, crystal chandeliers and everywhere bling. It is a room that demands an opinion.

“Some people say it is loud,” says Mr Grange, adding “there are some people who absolutely don’t like it and there are some people who love it. This is me, what I like, I’m not here to please everybody.

“When you start to please everybody you start to be in a world where everyone has the same smell or eats the same food.”
The Boris Lounge is styled on a 1920s Parisian bordello, chosen because the house dates from the same period.
“In Paris in the 20s you had all these bordellos … that flourished everywhere that were in this style, even more loud than here. I wanted to make a contemporary style but looking to the age of the house.”

The detailing in the room is incredible, from the laces on the feet of the chairs to the locking arms of the windows in the shape of reposing women. Designed by Mr Patrick Robert, a French designer based in Yangon, almost everything in the room is unique and, for the most part, crafted in Myanmar.

Although the bar is a members club, it is open to non-members until 8pm daily and has wireless internet.
Will it prove a success? To his credit, Mr Grange is willing to go out on a limb as regards taste, accepting that the finer things in life from food to wine to interior décor, necessarily divide opinion. While the bar may not suit everyone’s taste, Mr Grange has made a larger statement in defence of taste itself.