RH reinvents itself on Champs-Élysées with the latest RH Paris

RH has reinvented itself – again – this time on the Champs-Élysées, as the home furnishing specialist opens RH Paris on Europe’s most famous avenue.

The great and the good turned out for the opening Friday evening of RH Paris, the Gallery on the Champs, which featured three high-end restaurants, a haute gamme bar, and an elegant hidden garden.

Launched originally as Restoration Hardware in 1979 in California by Stephen Gordon, after he found difficulty finding high-quality fittings to restore his Victorian home, the firm was renamed RH in 2012. Before  morphing into the leading American high-end home furnishings chain – with galleries, guesthouses, and showrooms.

In the process, the brand’s RH Guesthouse in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District has become a key destination during New York Fashion Week for happening brands. Expect something similar to happen in the French fashion capital with RH Paris, given its marvelous location – 23 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, just around the corner from the ultra-upscale luxury thoroughfare Avenue Montaigne.

Formerly the location of a huge Abercrombie & Fitch flagship, the space had lain empty for half a decade, until RH reimagined it as an immersive retail experience and high-end hospitality center.

A dozen violinists dressed as Grecian goddesses serenaded the guests, which included Zoe Saldaña, Catherine Deneuve, Theo James, Ellen DeGeneres, and Portia de Rossi – all greeted by RH chairman and CEO Gary Friedman.

Editors, influencers, and designers enjoyed sushi and pâtisseries by Cyril Lignac, caviar by Petrossian, cocktails by legendary bartender Colin Field, and Vesper martinis by Alessandro Palazzi of Duke’s Bar London. DJ Milana performed as almost 1,000 invitees swarmed about the seven floors.

Where once shoppers thronged to find antique doorposts and door handles in Restoration Hardware, RH Paris features an Architecture & Design Bibliotheca, with rare books from the foundational masters, including Vitruvius, Da Vinci, Palladio, De L’Orme, Blondel, and Haussmann.

Commanding the center of the Bibliotheca is one of the first modern printings, circa 1521, of “De Architectura,” also known as “The Ten Books on Architecture,” by the first-century BC architect Marcus Vitruvius. The center of the atrium also features a cast bronze caryatid, circa 1870, attributed to French sculptor Louis-Félix Chabaud, renowned for his sculptures at the Louvre and the Palais Garnier opera house.

However, the key to the space is the fine dining: a menu of American and Mediterranean classics under a spectacular curved glass-and-steel structure in Le Jardin RH.

There’s also finer dining in Le Petit RH, a jewel box whose ceiling boasts over 7,000 individually handblown glass polyhedrons, or a top-notch view from a garden rooftop with vistas of the Eiffel Tower and Grand Palais.

One could quite simply enjoy a drink in the clubby World of RH Bar & Lounge, whose drinks menu is curated by famed bartender Colin Field.

Will French consumers fall in love with the thrusting brick and steel, club chair, and dark oil paintings aesthetic of RH Paris? That remains to be seen. But one cannot fault RH and CEO Friedman for chutzpah and self-confidence, aided by a substantial turnover of $3.18 billion in 2024.