7 minute read
DINING
from Supper - Issue 20
Here to Stay
Following a surge in the popularity of blink-andyou’ll-miss-them pop-up concepts, hotels have been welcoming a different kind of temporary resident.
Words: Lucy Lovell • Photography: Xavier Giammattei (unless otherwise stated)
Based on the quaint, snow-dusted façade, it’s almost impossible to guess the dining experience that awaits at Ultima Gstaad. Set in a postcard-perfect town in the Swiss Alps, the hotel looks more like a gingerbread house than a five-star retreat. With its ornate balconies and backdrop of sprucelined mountains, the chalet blends in perfectly with its surroundings. Its restaurant, on the other hand, does not. In fact, it’s about as far from traditional Swiss cuisine as you can get.
For one month only, Ultima Gstaad’s finedining restaurant has been transformed into a tropical paradise thanks to a collaboration with Peruvian restaurant Coya – a brand with outposts in Dubai, London and Paris. The hotel’s polished white plates have been swapped for emerald green sharing platters, subtle background music replaced by a DJ playing South American beats, and neat bouquets of flowers swamped by a
jungle of evergreens climbing the walls. It’s a multi-sensory Peruvian feast – and has been fully-booked since launch.
The pop-up is a relatively new concept in luxury hotels, but limited edition dining experiences have been taking place for decades. Some believe the movement emerged out of the supper clubs of the 1960s, while others point to pioneering chefs like Los Angeles-based Ludo Lefebvre as having kicked off a wave of modern takes through the 2000s. It came about when freelance chefs broke free of the confines of traditional restaurant environments, and, whether it was to save money or test out a new concept, cooks were taking to the streets and starting new empires. Empty warehouses, friend’s bars and even living rooms were turned into temporary culinary delights. Pop-ups were built on the foundations of an edgy, exciting dining movement, and it is a reputation that continues to this day.
Luxury swiss boutique Ultima Gstaad welcomed Peruvian restaurant Coya to offer guests a cultureclash F&B experience
It prompts the question: just how well can this radical format fit into a luxury hotel setting? The makeover involves hosting anything from an elite chef to an entire restaurant team, inviting them to take over the kitchen and floor operations. According to Simon Le Cossec, General Manager at Ultima Gstaad, it can be a great success – if you’re willing to take a risk. “To be honest, at the beginning, we didn’t know whether we would have success with Coya,” he admits. “Because in Gstaad sometimes it’s very traditional, very classic, and we injected a new energy.” He needn’t have worried; the weekend after launch Coya was already in high demand.
Perhaps the success is down to Ultima Gstaad’s commitment to recreating the Coya experience in impeccable detail. They flew in the DJ from Monaco, shipped tableware from London and rented crockery from Geneva. The London-based restaurant chain brought in 25 of its best team members from Mayfair and Dubai. It might sound extravagant, but their knowledge helped put slightly bewildered diners at ease, encouraging them to explore Coya’s flavourpacked menu. Crisp corn tortillas served with a spicy guacamole that waiters crush at the table; sea bass ceviche dressed with crunchy choclo corn and a hefty squeeze of lime; and arroz nikkei, a homage to the Japanese-Peruvian fusion cuisine, made with Chilean sea bass.
And if cooking the dishes to the exacting standards of Coya’s chefs wasn’t difficult enough, sourcing the ingredients was another major challenge. The Chilean sea bass, for example, proved slippery getting hold of. “It was not easy,” Le Cossec concedes. “We don’t have this fish, so we had to buy it in France and then declare to customs that we had something new.” Some ingredients proved impossible to
source, no matter how hard the team tried. “Coya wanted us to create their dishes perfectly, so we cancelled those that we couldn’t find the right ingredients,” he adds.
Despite some challenging logistics, it’s worth it overall, assures Le Cossec. Ultima Gstaad can now compete with established luxury hotels in the area which benefit from a higher footfall and Michelin-starred credentials, but pop-ups are just one of the ways that it can offer something unique. “I think when you go to the hotel you want more than fine dining,” Le Cossec says. “One or two Michelin stars, that’s amazing, but you go there only once. When you have pop-ups like this you can grab your guest with something new.”
Now, guests staying at competing hotels are making dinner reservations at Ultima Gstaad, and the hotel’s own guests are dining in-house for up to three nights in a row. “It creates a buzz,” Le Cossec smiles. “That’s very important for us. We are small but we want to show that we always keep moving forward.”
The key to running a successful pop-up is finding the right fit. It’s something hotels around the world are searching for, with some finding successful partnerships that recur year after year. Beachcomber Resorts & Hotels in Mauritius, for example, have been hosting events with Michelin-starred chefs from France and Italy for over two years, while Japanese chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa partakes in an anticipated annual residency at Zürich’s Baur au Lac.
Other hotels book events more impulsively, scouting out the rising stars of their local food scenes. In this case, the venue becomes a testing ground for gastronomical talent, where there’s a huge benefit for the chefs as well as the hotel. Take St. Martins Lane London for example. Its latest project is a three-month pop-up by chef Gizzi Erskine, who is turning St. Martins Lane Kitchen into The Nitery – a playful take on 20 th century Parisian nightclubs, serving sumptuous fusion food.
For Erskine, the chef residency provides a supportive space for restaurateurs to hone their craft and concepts. This, in turn, paves the way for them to set up new ventures in the future. She explains: “It’s no secret what an insanely difficult landscape it is out there for burgeoning businesses of any kind. A pop-up can provide a safe incubator to explore an idea before you take the plunge of opening a permanent site.”
Moreover, pop-ups are a way to tap into trends without permanently changing a core
GIZZI ERSKINE
The month-long Experimental Negroni Club at London’s Henrietta Hotel served modern twists on the classic cocktail
offering. London’s Henrietta Hotel recently noticed a surge in demand for negronis. Bosses worked quickly to satiate London’s thirst and launched the Experimental Negroni Club last September. For one-month the property’s mezzanine space was transformed via an immersive light installation and a Camparisponsored bar serving twists on the classic.
But for Pierre-Charles Cros, co-founder of Henrietta Hotel’s parent company Experimental Group, it’s not enough to simply replicate trends. Customers are incredibly discerning, he warns. “We try to push a little... to bring something a bit different. Everyone knows what the negroni is and we wanted to present them with other things that they can drink it with.”
In Cros’ mind, the term pop-up can be restrictive. For him it’s a time-consuming, artistic endeavour, and sometimes the word just doesn’t do the event justice. “It’s not so much a pop-up, it’s an exchange,” he concludes. “You could call it pop-up or a takeover, but you have to be creative.”
Cros’ struggle with the word is indicative of just how much the trend has changed. Its origins are in disused buildings, but these residencies have since evolved into a collaboration between restaurant, venue and guest. Whether it’s waiting staff imbued with an incredible knowledge of Peruvian ingredients or bartenders who can whip up the perfect negroni, there is a lasting impression in terms of knowledge, skills and reputation.
In this light, the pop-up looks less like a fleeting experiment and more like a cultural exchange. Far from being transitory, pop-ups and chef residencies could become a permanent fixture on many more hotel calendars.
© Aron Klein
