Opening Shot is a column that peeks inside new hotels, restaurants, bars, and shops with dreamy interiors.
OKA & FOGO
Location: Paris
Designer: Arnaud Behzadi
On Offer: For a pair of new restaurants from Michelin-starred chef Raphael Rego, architect Arnaud Behzadi built connections between the chef’s Brazilian heritage and Parisian location literally into the walls, where the Haussmann building’s ground-floor stone meets a new façade of warm Jatoba wood. Inside, Behzadi offered each restaurant—Oka, named for the Tupi word for “house,” and Fogo, the word for “fire”—its own main room; there’s also an alcove with room for six, and a vaulted tasting room for its 5,000 wine and champagne offerings. At Oka, Rego’s tasting menu takes guests on journeys down Brazil’s two rivers. Fogo, meanwhile, offers plates inspired by Brazil’s gauchos, like Beef with cassava and chimichurri.
Standout Amenities: Behzadi fills both rooms with seating from Brazil’s own Sergio Rodrigues, which create the perfect vantage points for a pair of monumental frescoes by Florence Bamberger. For Oka, she pays tribute to the surrealist writer Borgés in a charming vista of jaguar, capivara, coati roux, toucan, and ara hyacinthe. A French touch appears in Fogo, for which Bamberger offers a take on Édouard Manet’s painting Déjeuner sur l’herbe.
