Maison Aurèle
The website of a Parisian fine dining restaurant: refined, hushed, designed to make you want to book.
The context
Maison Aurèle is a twenty-four-seat fine dining restaurant in Paris’s 7th arrondissement. The chef, trained in Paris and Kyoto, offers three tasting menus that change with the seasons. Its guests: food lovers, business diners and many international visitors.
The challenge
Bring the experience of a great restaurant online: luxury without showing off, clear navigation in French and English, and a journey that naturally leads from discovering the menus to booking, on desktop and mobile alike.
The idea
Turn the website into a hushed dining room: large dark photographs, generous white space, very fine classic typography and a deep burgundy lifted with gold. Menus are numbered in Roman numerals like a grand restaurant’s card, and every page ends with an invitation to book.
Colours
- Bordeaux#4A1020
- Nuit#2A0912
- Crème#F5EEE4
- Or#B8955A
Typefaces
- Cormorant GaramondHeadings
- JostBody & navigation
A hushed art direction
Deep burgundy, cream and touches of gold; Cormorant Garamond headings for elegance, Jost in spaced small caps for navigation. Photos are darkened to recreate a softly lit dining room, and animations stay subtle: gentle fade-ins on scroll, a slight zoom on images.
Built for the restaurant
The booking form rules out closing days and offers the right times for each service. Gift vouchers and private dining become new revenue streams. The site is bilingual, fast, mobile-friendly and ready for Google (titles, descriptions, linked FR/EN versions). Content — menus, prices, hours — is edited in a single file.
The outcome
A website worthy of the food: it sets the mood from the very first second, reassures international guests with the English version and turns curiosity into bookings. Concept project by Mauvia; restaurant, chef and prices are fictional, photos from Unsplash.