Created in 1962 by Jean Castel, the king of the Parisian night, Castel has become the unavoidable place of the Parisian party. Originally, Castel was the venue where jet sets, artists, broke dandys and precious, elegant girls with endless legs, celebrated love, the feast of spirits and bodies.
Castel to be Castel again!
An estate with endless mazes, a family atmosphere, where the sun never filtered, but spirit flirted with the drunkenness of the nights. Castel shone with the brilliance of a Topor crossing an Edouard Baer, inhabited by the Caca’s club. (Club des Analphabètes Cons mais Attachants – Club of Illiterates but Endearing Cons). Honoré Balzac’s thought accompanies the night owls in this times written and fixed … “You know the proverb? there is no good party without a tomorrow.”
A bluish crescent moon floats above this eternal time. In a glass’ solitude, Françoise Sagan tasted the immutable chimera. Castel always dresses in a red no one is blushing with. The night awakened the Day. The day of Castel’s new birth is re-played on all lips: C A S T E L
Dressed in glamorous gown, it gazes eccentrics, travellers, solitaries, the collector, the pleasure-seeker, the seductress, the entertainer washed down with champagne and lets them, or not, cross the famous red facade. Night is a secret at Castel, an outer-worldly with nocturnal poetry. Castel, the sweetest and most distinguished of clubs, distills its fragrance over several floors: Elite Bar and Foyer on the ground floor, Club in the Basement, Restaurant on the 1st and Private Room on the 2nd. We dine there, we dance there as in an endless farandole where the wise man goes mad. In the hell of a Library, lined with original editions of erotic books, the reader dines in glowing Glamorous Rouge. The taste buds light up in front of the exceptional wine cellar. The diviner will become a great entertainer.
The bottles, bearing the members names, celebrate the appetisers nascency, we dine late so we dont leave Her. The embrace continues and we embosom into other spheres, on other floors. The red vision endures in the curls of a whiskey of such a heady age. Beauty is a ghostly presence, wandering around.
Works of art find reflections in the Ice Palace. The Palace is refined, so chic in the predominant black lacquer and white layers. It sparkles in the artistic pleiad. Castel lights up with photos by Pierre Molinier, lithographs by Allen Jones, collage by Erró, drawings by Topor, Keith Harring and wonderful, surreal presences. This cabinet of curiosities continues a descent, after the ecstatic ascent.
We warm our soul to the rhythm of a piano and we taste the Paris of the yesteryear, succulent. In the Foyer, the walls are lacquered in red and black. A brasserie atmosphere spreads through the checkered tablecloths and 18th century terracotta tiles. The casseroles heat up and fests, the picky mouth with golden eyes is lucky. Castel is a painting of a society hungry for joy.
The mural fresco by Jean-Philippe Delhomme reveals the elegant majesty of the past. You can see portraits of an eclectic clientele and personalities such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Yves Saint Laurent and many others. The carpet is signed Pierre Frey and it is imagined by the decorator André; it adorns with a male sexes constellation, mouths and eyes, greedy lips; it is trodden by the night owls who swing their hips on the dance floor. The steps intensify to the rhythm of sharp, surprising, eclectic and familiar music. Castel is a kingdom of buoyant and obsessive tones.
Castel emerges from its chrysalis and is reborn in great pomp.
Sixteen entrepreneurs are participating in this renewal. This resurrection brings together Thierry Costes, Jacques-Antoine Granjon, Laurent Milchior, Guillaume and Nicolas Houzé, the banker Grégoire Chertok, Christopher Descours, Charles Beigbeder and Laurent de Gourcuff.
“They managed to revive the place as it was originally. The Castel spirit is back”
explains Mélinda Hélie, who gracefully reincarnates this eternal and refined Parisian nightlife. For the general manager of this high place steeped in glamor and quintessence, Castel must be a permanent party. A mix of Studio 54 and Palace where the celebration mood is found, with intense moments in the middle of superbly fashioned life-prolonging figures, in stunning rapture.
Castel is a flamboyant club, exclusively open to members with nominative and numbered cards, with a trans-generational and magical clientele. Castel is a reverie. We delight in costume parties, we release ourselves in a dancing plenitude. We savour the sparkling private showcases. Castel is a small champagne bubble to discover with no moderation.
photos curtesy of Castel Club
Castel is open from Tuesday to Saturday. The Foyer is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., and Thursday to Saturday, 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. The Restaurant on the 1st floor is open from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., Tuesday to Saturday. The Club is open Tuesday and Wednesday, from 10 p.m., and Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and the eve of public holidays, from 11 p.m.
Castel 15 rue Princesse 75006 Paris +33 1 40 51 52 80
location photographer Louis Teran
