Ashley Randall
A new venture from TAO Group, The Fleur Room, officially opened to the public in West Hollywood in mid-August.
hThough the hospitality group is most known for its lavish nightclubs, beach day clubs, and restaurants in major markets like Las Vegas, New York, London, Miami, Dubai, Shanghai, Singapore and, of course, Los Angeles, The Fleur Room marks a distinct pivot away from the noise and strobe lighting that have become the language of nightlife, and instead offers a subtle, more adult cocktail lounge experience.
“We wanted to create a destination that was sophisticated and not nightlife-centric, a place where adults can go and have a drink, socialize a little bit more, be present and a bit more engaged,” Tao Group Hospitality CMO Pavan Pardasani tells The Hollywood Reporter.
With this in mind, The Fleur Room’s messaging is noticeably more understated, thanks in part to the velvet seating, marble cocktail tables, and jewel tone colors that make up the design scheme (inspired by London members clubs, according to Pardasani). The Fleur Room, which is reservation only, is not necessarily for the partygoer, but instead a place crafted intentionally for a post-dinner drink or pregame before a night out on the town. “It’s about smaller, more intimate conversations,” says Pardasani.
The opening of The Fleur Room’s doors has been gradual by design. The reservations-only cocktail lounge, which is located on Sunset Boulevard, has been fully realized and functioning for nearly four months, but the team behind the space decided to open as summer slows into fall, a strategic choice since most vacations have been had and people are returning and settling into Los Angeles again.
During the months it has been quietly open, The Fleur Room has welcomed a smattering of celebrity clientele: Kendall Jenner, Lori Harvey, Jason Oppenheim and Ryan Philippe to name a few. It has also hosted several Hollywood special occasions, like Kevin Hart’s birthday party, Stephen Curry’s ESPYs party, album listening parties for both DJ Calvin Harris and singer Giveon and Bella Hadid’s Kin Euphorics launch.
“When we’re opening a nightclub, we go for a big bang because we need as many people to find out about the place as possible. That’s just part of the business model,” Pardasani says. “But when you’re going for an understated cocktail lounge, I think you want to create more of an organic groundswell. And that requires being somewhat thoughtful about who we want the audience to ultimately be and how do we cater to them.”
Perhaps the most surprising event came in the form of a private, 20-person cocktail party for Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, when he was in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas conference in early June.
“I got a phone call from a friend of mine who was producing an event for Justin Trudeau, and he said Justin was looking for a place to go after the summit,” Pardasani remembers. “It was a scene out of whatever movie you can think of, with Secret Service and local police scoping the place out.”
So while The Fleur Room is already making a name for itself in the Hollywood scene, the TAO team is ultimately looking to attract a “cross-section of the industries that really make L.A. tick,” Pardasani says. “I think this [city] used to be really entertainment-driven, but we’ve seen things change.”
So far, people working in music, film, fashion, and now tech, a relatively new hospitality audience in Los Angeles, have frequented the venue the most.
Courtesy of AVABLU
The beverage program, led by Tao Group Hospitality’s beverage director Craig Schoettler (Alinea, The Aviary), is the raison d’être, especially since there’s no food on the menu. Standouts include “La Pina,” a mezcal cocktail featuring Dos Hombres, one of The Fleur Room’s partners, and a “super premium” Casa Azul reposado tequila cocktail, served in the bottom half of the blue-and-white ceramic bottles themselves.
“Our focus here with our cocktail program is really delivering for our guests on that promise of it being a cocktail lounge, and not just using that term lightly,” Pardasani says. “When you have that over 70 locations in over 25 markets around the world, we definitely have something for everybody. We just felt that what was missing — and what we’d love to be a part of — is to create a place that had a nightlife sensibility in the sense that you could get great service, see a great crowd, have great drinks, listen to some great music, but not deal with everything that comes along with nightlife.”
The Fleur Room is located at 9201 Sunset Boulevard and is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.