A conversation about hospitality with Xavier Padovani, partner and director of Experimental

0:12Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco and today I speak with Xavier Padovani, partner and director for the hospitality group Experimental. We discussed the reopening of their Experimental Cocktail Club in London's Chinatown and their upcoming property in Rome.

0:37Xavier Padovani, a partner and director of the Experimental Group. What a pleasure to have you here. You know, I'm a fan of your group. I stayed in some of your hotels. So, Xavier, first of all, tell us about since when, because you were not perhaps the original founders, but you came to the company three years after, right?

0:55Xavier Padovani:Yeah, that's correct. The original founders are three childhood friends. French, Pierre-Charles, Romais, and Olivier. They created the first operation, the first cocktail bar in Paris called Experimental Cocktail Club, probably about 17, 18 years ago. And I met them through Mutual France just when they just opened the Experimental Cocktail Club in Paris, Montorgueil. I used to work for a Scottish distiller for William Grant & Son. I used to go around the world for Hendrix Gin to launch the gin in New Market. I met them. We started to organize a party together, like fun parties in Paris. And it all started from there, really, like from one thing led to another thing.

1:40Xavier Padovani:We started to hang out together. After William Grant, I was going to open a bar potentially in London. They were like, well, we want a bar in London, so let's do it together. And what started like as a friendship, you know, I remember during the bars in summer in Tuscany with the boys and all that group of friends, which became basically a group of friends, I became acquainted with. So it started from like a genuine kind of like a relationship, friendship. Like a clique. And then one thing leading to the other one, we've opened a bar together. And then I think very organically, it was like, okay, two choices.

2:12Xavier Padovani:You keep the bar, that's it. Or you come on board. But yeah, then sure, we don't know what's going to happen, but it's your call. I closed my eyes. I trusted them. And I was like, you know what? All in. I've never looked back since. So, yeah. I love that. And is the, of course, we're going to talk here about the Experimental Cocktail Club in Chinatown, the iconic place, which has been kind of refurbished, you know, it's kind of looking revamped. Was that the first international kind of bar or hotel from the Experimental Group? Yeah, that's correct. So the first bar was Experimental Cocktail Club Paris.

2:45Xavier Padovani:And then moving forward, there was a couple of operations in Paris, a cocktail bar as well, and then a wine bar, like Compagnie des Vents Naturels at the time. but the first international operation was in London, in Chinatown, in a jarred street. That's correct, yeah. I love the location because I live not too far. First of all, it's great to live close to Chinatown. It's an amazing spot. Great food and a very cool area. So for those who know, perhaps, you know, the bar, you know, as I said, it's an iconic place in London. What has changed? I mean, I know it looks great visually. I think it has some great design there as well.

3:16Nothing has changed, I want to say. Which is good. It's just a revamp.

3:21Xavier Padovani:Yeah, it's a catch. When you're an operator in London and you've been running a cocktail bar for 15 years, you can't be complacent. You have to be, you know, like not reinventing the wheel because of the bar works. It works well. But we had to do it just because at some stage, you know, you're going to move on to the slightly not different level, but to keep it as it is a small jewel, you know, a small town house hidden away. and it's funny because we opened 15 years ago like from the moment we opened the door it was a killing you know people were like wow JR Street 15 years ago I remember some of the guests we had to manage not to let in because there was a bit rock and roll at the time in that street if you were there 15 years ago you probably remember but now it's how do we make it relevant to a younger generation of drinkers you know like I was at the bar last week on Tuesday now on Thursday we have a big night a French touch night love French touch Yeah, exactly that.

4:14Xavier Padovani:It's la touche française in French. And I spoke to kids who were 20, 25 years old next to me, and they were like, whoa, I never knew that bar was there. For me, that's with a treat of something. If I can draw like a younger generation of drinker to the bar that was open 15 years ago, yes, I had to do refurbishment. Yes, I had to like make sure that for 15 years, it's intemporel. It's like if you were there 15 years ago and you come tomorrow and the quality of the drink is the same, The music is maybe not the same because things have evolved, but experience has to be amazing. It's what we aim to reach.

4:48Xavier Padovani:And that's what we still thrive on trying to achieve every day, I think. Well, I was there last weekend and Timothy, of course, in charge of the drinks. I had the Sundowner Society, amazing cocktail with tequila, very good choice. And after some champagne as well, right? Possibly. What's your drink of choice? I'm curious if you go to the Experimental Cocktail Club today. It depends on the time of the day. Last Thursday, I may have had a few Tommy's Margherita, which is a cocktail that was created in San Francisco by Julio Bemero in Tommy's, which is like a simple version of the Margherita with agave instead of Cointreau.

5:24Xavier Padovani:But I also start usually the night, if Olivier is in town, one of my business partners, we start with Dirty Martini Gin. And then depending where we're going, I drink quite a bit of champagne as well, a little bit of a sparkling wine from France. It's not going to hurt anyone. But it depends. Yeah, martini early evening, then something a little bit more, you know, long and a bit more, you know, paloma, you know, is very fashionable at the moment. It doesn't hurt either. I must say that tequila, gin, tequila is something of interest at the moment. You mentioned, of course, we're talking about the revamp, but, you know, we have to be careful with the word because, as I said, the place didn't change that much, the ethos of it.

6:00What makes a property experimental, part of the experimental group? Because I have to say, although there's been a lot of growth, new properties. There is something about it that makes experimental. For me, it's the lighting as well, this kind of discretion. It's not flashy, but it's cool.

6:16Xavier Padovani:It's a nice way to describe it. Sorry, that was a personal take. You've been there. First off, every single location we have means something to us, historically speaking. Be it Chinatown, we visited a million of different places to find this bar, Pierre-Charles, Roméo Olivier and I. We found that place again a few years back. It was like a really dodgy bar, kind of like where you probably wouldn't want to go. But to find a place, to find a surrounding location and to get a vision that says, you know what, whatever it is now. But you see what you can do with it in terms of potential and in terms of attraction and what you're doing.

6:52Xavier Padovani:So I would say there's like a special things in the air in some location. You were talking about Menorca. In Menorca, the light is great. I remember flying there with my business partner, Pierre Charles, to meet Jean that was showing us a property to potentially the hotel. We landed. Ten minutes later, we knew that that's it. We haven't seen the property yet. We're driving. We know we got to do something there. Same thing with, you know, maybe Portugal or Switzerland. I think location is very important. And very often it's relevant to any one of us. Like Romain used to ski in Verbier as a kid, for example.

7:24Xavier Padovani:Boom, we ended up in Verbier. Olivier grew up skiing in Val d 'Isère. boom we open in Val d 'Isère but then as you said the lighting for example and the sound you should be able to walk in a bar like from 6 to 9 10 p.m. and the lighting should be super discreet it should be something really like cozy and really like low on all level not low enough that you can't see the menu but discreet and nice and cozy that's the atmosphere the sound you should be able to talk to your boyfriend girlfriend your friend your cousin everyone and then yes of course like past 10.30 11 o 'clock in ECC Chinatown yes the music on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, it goes up a little bit.

8:00Xavier Padovani:And look, if you're on a dance, you dance. But there's nothing that is like, at least there's no scenario. Like what we try to create is a moment where wherever you are anywhere in the world in Experimental Cocktail Club, for example, or in our hotels as well, that you're there, it's a spot. And then you know what? You had a few cocktails, but hey, you wanted a bit of champagne because you want to push the moment forward. I think it's the surrendering, creating the perfect surrendering, like no pretension, good drinks, good lights and good music, yeah. And a good crowd. I can tell you, it's interesting going back to the topic of drinks, because sometimes we read articles, oh, the young generation, they're not drinking anymore.

8:36Maybe there's a little exaggeration on that. Actually, I have to say there was a little bit of a young-ish crowd, actually, on Saturday evening when I was there.

8:44Xavier Padovani:You know, it's very funny you say that because I'm all in for like, you know, non-alcoholic kind of like things, you know, I have my favorite non-alcoholic brands. But I see like the last few 15 months or 24 months, everyone, kids are not drinking anymore and all that. I don't want to swear, you know, on radio or whatever. I'll be very honest. It's a lot of BS. Agreed. When I'm at last Thursday, we do a night called The French Touch with Pablo Padoni from Mundoid's band. So he's playing. He's getting like a lot of like people to come mix like French artists. One may be well-known, maybe a little one less known, but like we had Leticia from Stereolab months ago.

9:19Xavier Padovani:Last month was a Louis Hoffman, you know, a few people come in. The crowd was between, let's say, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. And they drink like there's no tomorrow. So, yes, they're not caning shots, you know, and I'm drinking a pint of beer because we may not serve a pint of beers. But I saw kids holding cocktails from like a moment ago, 9.30 p.m. until like 2, 3 o 'clock in the morning. So then I come out, I go to, we have another bar called Stereo in Covent Garden. Demographic is quite similar, you know, 19, 20, 21, let's say 21, whatever, 21, 22, 23, 25. If I look at the sales on a Sunday morning, the first thing I will see is about a thousand shots of tequila.

9:59Xavier Padovani:Good tequila, not like cheap tequila from maybe the off-license shop around the corner, but good product. So that you may say kids or generation drinks less, but better quality. I think it's a statement I would agree with. That, yeah, maybe they drink less, maybe there's a current, you know, not like prohibition, but maybe there's a current that says, oh, you know, I'm not saying alcohol is good or bad for you. I'm just saying that there's a lot of say, hearsays. And if I look at the numbers at the bar, I see younger generation, because I'm slightly older, I still see them like with cocktail in the hand and enjoying the night and drinking.

10:32Xavier Padovani:So, yeah, I think there's a big gap between what people would like to think or like to see and the real numbers. And yes, when you see a company, big distiller that produce millions of hectoliters of alcohol, of course, they're producing too much of doing whatever. But that doesn't match, I think, with the reality of the market. Super interesting insights from you. And Xavier, I'm just curious more as well about your kind of hospitality properties. How is it going? Because I know you have three hotels in Paris, right? And a few others as well. So how do you see 2026, especially for the hotel kind of sector?

11:03Xavier Padovani:On the hotel sector, again, I must say for the last number I'm aware and I've seen, So we've got about 10, 15-ish hotels worldwide. In London as well, of course. In London. There's one in London as well in the Cotswolds, in Kolemanau. The rooms are packed. The hotels are busy. I see not really like a change so much on that. I see, yes, traveling trend, you know, with Portugal becoming slightly more popular. We have a lot of like skiing destination as well being interesting. Summer mountain destination as well. But the hotels, I must say, are doing extremely well. If anything, we're growing. We're looking at expanding further in terms of F &B.

11:41Xavier Padovani:And now we've worked with like chefs, you know, like with Jackson Boxer in London, with Passerini in Paris and in Rome now. So we get to work to meet with amazing chefs who know exactly what they're doing. That's why we work with them, you know, as consultants, as part of the creative teams. On F &B, it's a little bit more challenging. You really need to make an effort and listen to the consumer. You really need to like, you can't just open a restaurant. Thank you. Goodbye. You really need to create, like we have special night at the company in Covent Garden with a Jura night, for example, or French Alps night.

12:12Xavier Padovani:You know, we've got to be creative and speak to our guests to show that these things are happening. I think it's the days are long gone when you open a bar, restaurant and booth, anything happens. So it's a bit more difficult in terms of like we have an amazing team. So we get to do things like that. But on the hotels, to go back on your question, it's crazy. It's like it's having this, whatever's happening in the economy, there's a need for people to travel more and more. And I think we also provide like, I don't want to say quite luxury or whatever it is, but I think we have a saying that goes, hey, you know what?

12:45Xavier Padovani:People come for the design, as you mentioned, because we work a lot of different, you know, like Rome, which is opening in July, end of June, early July with Rodolphe Parente. We work a lot with Dorothea as well. We have so many different designers as well that we try to create a product that you can steal. It's affordable, but it's a service which is very unique to Experimental Group. So we, you know, a few friends of mine were in Venice recently. We have a nice little hotel as well in Venice in Dorso Duro. And again, it's like almost like up to the luxury level. But, you know, we've, I think, affordable.

13:16Xavier Padovani:We call it affordable luxury, whatever you want to call it. But I think we try to promote, like, and the staff happens to care. We don't want like, it's not a cruise ship, nothing against the boats. You know, it's not a cruise ship. It's like we tend to really be careful with the way we approach customers. Everyone who sleep in one of our hotel in our rooms, I sleep in the same matelas in my house. It's one company that does it in France. I would not make you sleep in a bed that I wouldn't sleep myself with. So in terms of products from the play, the restaurant, from the bed sheets, the pillows, people will be amazed.

13:47Xavier Padovani:I sleep on the same pillows because pillows are extremely important. And if I don't like what's in the hotel, I will never push anyone to sleep on that. So there's a research in terms of product, step by step, which I think is for us, it's where we really like guitar. In French, we say it's not Kif. That's really what we like to do. The hotels are doing extremely well in terms of numbers, rooms. Yeah, it's really, really good. You have the finger on the pulse because you mentioned Rome opening mid-year. I mean, there's something about Rome that I've been reading, but maybe in Italy in general as well.

14:18Rome is on fire. I need to go to Rome.

14:21Xavier Padovani:Yeah, you should. And you should come for the opening. There you go. Yes. Good excuse. I think there's a few cities at the moment, interestingly enough, that yes, Rome's always been kind of cool or else. But the last 12, I think, 15 months, something is happening in Rome. Some of the big brands, hotels are coming as well. I think there's more and more. It's a city that is so much more to do, to discover. It's such an amazing place as well. Yes, it could be seen as a bit old-fashioned, a bit old school. But in terms of the art, culture, like it's an incredible spot. And I think there's more to come as well.

14:52Xavier Padovani:I think it's going to be an amazing destination. And the hotel we're finishing to build now, I mean, pool, rooftop, it's there. So I think it's going to be something. Thank you, Xavier Padovani there. For more information on the Experimental Group, go to experimentalgroup.com. I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco, and this show was edited by Jack Dewars. Thank you for listening.

15:18Thank you.