At WINONA, Romain Basile Petrot Reimagines the Parisian Night Out

Restaurants have always been more than places to eat. Particularly in cities such as Paris, they function as social interiors: spaces where food, conversation, fashion and nightlife temporarily overlap, and where the atmosphere of a room can become as important as what arrives at the table. Today, as hospitality increasingly moves between dining, drinking and entertainment, the restaurant is also becoming a more fluid typology: part bistro, part bar, part stage for the social rituals of the city.

WINONA emerges within this context. The new Parisian restaurant and cocktail bar, designed by architect and designer Romain Basile for Adrien Vernet of Fugazi and Benjamin Le Seigneur of Classique, does not attempt to invent an entirely unfamiliar language. Instead, it works with recognisable codes of Parisian hospitality and subtly distorts them, creating a place that feels simultaneously new and already lived in.

That sense of familiarity was deliberate. Although the interior was completely rebuilt, Petrot wanted WINONA to feel as if it had somehow always existed. Rather than producing the immaculate atmosphere of a newly completed interior, the project searches for character from the outset: a setting suited to long evenings with friends, dates or the more performative encounters of Paris Fashion Week.

At the centre of the restaurant is its strongest architectural gesture: a horseshoe-shaped wooden counter topped with deep red marble. The room unfolds longitudinally around it, turning the bar into both a functional element and a social centre. Cocktails by Yves Karlier and small plates by Cecilia Munguira, inspired by Spain and Portugal, reinforce this hybrid condition between restaurant and late-night destination.

Material and colour push the interior towards a distinctly nocturnal atmosphere. A glossy black floor reflects the light above, while the lacquered ceiling adds warmth and depth. Deep reds, dark woods and reflective surfaces give the restaurant a dense, almost cinematic quality without turning it into a theatrical set.

Towards the rear, the atmosphere changes. A large banquette and mirrored walls reinterpret familiar codes of the Parisian bistro, but the result is softer and more enveloping. The space becomes almost boudoir-like, conceived for lingering at the table and allowing conversations to stretch into the night.

The distinction is subtle but important. WINONA does not recreate the historical bistro through nostalgia; instead, Petrot uses its vocabulary as a cultural memory. Mirrors, banquettes, intimate lighting and dark timber are immediately recognisable, yet their proportions, surfaces and combinations belong to a contemporary interior. Familiarity becomes less a question of style than of atmosphere.

Lighting plays a fundamental role in constructing it. Custom sconces and a ceiling light designed by Petrot were conceived as extensions of the architecture rather than decorative additions, helping define the intimacy of the room. The images of the project reinforce this relationship: metal fixtures hang almost like small architectural objects above the tables, while wall lights emerge from textured surfaces that deliberately resist the perfection of a pristine new interior.

An aluminium bas-relief by Valentine Nitram introduces another layer. The artwork evokes a banquet that gradually unfolds and unravels as the night progresses - an image that mirrors the restaurant itself, whose identity is intended to change through occupation, conversation and time.

This dialogue between architecture and objects also reflects Petrot's wider practice. Based in Paris and working across spatial and object design, he approaches furniture almost as architecture, exploring structural clarity, composition and materiality. His interiors similarly combine geometric rigour with an attention to atmosphere, history and the personalities of those who inhabit them. 

In a moment when hospitality interiors are often conceived to become instantly recognisable images, Romain Basile Petrot proposes something more ambiguous: a restaurant that wants to look less like a new destination than a place whose story has already begun.

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Words: Simone Lorusso
Photo: Romain Roucoules