Since 2014, when we first met Gesa Hansen, we’ve been following her around, from her Young Designer in Paris Digs to her High-Style Rustic House for Her Family of Five. Gesa, who is Scandinavian and German and studied in Japan, runs her own interior design firm and furniture line, The Hansen Family, produced by her parents’ wood workshop in Germany. She recently updated us on her latest project: the newly opened Café Compagnon in Paris’s Sentier neighborhood in the 2ème, which she designed for her restaurateur husband, Charles Compagnon.
The morning-to-night cafe-bar-bistro came to be at a fragile time, and Charles’s request was that Gesa create a gathering space with a “light, calm, protective feeling.” She took that directive and ran with it, orchestrating a three-seating-area dining room that is both rigorously planned and filled with personal touches. “The idea was to create an homage to Charle’s late grandfather, sculptor Carlos Ferreira de la Torre,” Gesa tells us. And also to infuse it with a home away from home feeling: “in Paris, the apartments are often so small that your favorite restaurant becomes your living room where you also work, and where you have all your lunches and dinners. That’s why I put sockets everywhere.” Join us for a look at a dozen details worth noting—and borrowing when creating your own place to linger.
Photography by Nathalie Mohadjer, courtesy of Gesa Hansen.
1. Make an entrance.
![cafe compagnon is located on a quiet street close to the palais royal and the l 17](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-1-733x466.jpg)
![cafe compagnon paris gesa hansen design nathalie mohadjer photo 3](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-3-733x977.jpg)
2. Animate your rooms with art…
![café compagnon is charles\2\17;s third paris restaurant—he a 19](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/charles-compagnon-and-gesa-hansen-at-cafe-compagnon-paris-2-733x977.jpg)
3. …and dynamic furniture, too.
![\2\20;i like using wood in ways that make it look softer, almost like a 20](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-13-733x978.jpg)
4. Foxed mirrors = flattering.
![you might think that weathered mirrors are hard to come by, especially in large 21](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-4-733x977.jpg)
5. Why stop at one?
![the ceiling is filled with a constellation of lights (the etna design in copper 22](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-2-733x550.jpg)
6. Frame your view.
![enclosures add order and cohesion, which is why gesa, uses them everywhere: &am 23](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-5-733x550.jpg)
7. Go a bit soft.
![contrasting textured surfaces make the space more interesting and cozy: gesa pa 24](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-6-733x977.jpg)
8. Make a statement with stone.
Above: “I prefer to use colored stones as colors instead of painting a wall, says Gesa explaining her choice of Rojo Alicante, “one of the cheaper marbles” on the wall with a view into the kitchen. Set off by white surfaces, the various reds co-exist harmoniously.
9. Crenelation isn’t just for castles.
![inspired by brancusi sculptures, gesa topped the banquettes with zigzag edging: 26](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-8-733x550.jpg)
![gesa finished the bar in wooden demilunes: \2\20;for bar fronts and kitc 27](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-9-733x550.jpg)
Some of the wines on offer are from Charle’s own vineyard in Beaujolais. And to make sure his establishments serve memorably great coffee, Charles spends hours roasting organic beans in a roaster he installed in an old barn at their family home in Courances, south of Paris.
10. The everyday can be eye-opening.
![the hallway to the bathrooms is lined in what gesa describes as \2\20;ty 28](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-10-733x977.jpg)
11. Wine works in a small bathroom.
![the bathrooms shift to dramatic glossy tiles in a claret red from fifth generat 29](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-11-733x977.jpg)
12. Handmade details are welcoming.
![we can all benefit from some softness these days. to lend the establishment the 30](https://media.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cafe-compagnon-paris-gesa-hansen-design-nathalie-mohadjer-photo-12-733x977.jpg)
Cafe Compagnon is at 22-26 rue Léopold Bellan in Paris’s 2nd arrondissement.
More design ideas to steal:
- 16 Storage Ideas to Steal from the Shakers
- Danish Light: 8 Ideas to Steal from a Restaurant in Copenhagen by a Studio on the Rise
- 15 Storage Ideas to Steal from High-End Kitchens
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