How two brothers are reviving a legendary perfumery from Monaco’s golden age

When César Ritz opened the Grand Hôtel de Monte-Carlo in 1881 he created the blueprint for luxurious inns in the present day by bringing a tailor, a florist, a shoemaker, a chef and a perfumer, Nestor Moëhr, underneath one roof to craft bespoke creations for the palace-like property on the Riviera. Ritz ultimately left Monte-Carlo for Paris to begin his personal eponymous resort, however the perfumer Moëhr stayed on, ultimately launching his personal fragrance home, La Parfumerie de Monte-Carlo.

La Parfumerie de Monte-Carlo disappeared when the Grand Hôtel shuttered its doorways, however now, greater than 100 years after it was first created, two brothers, Vincent and Nicolas Poylo, are reviving the home for a brand new period with six fragrances, every named after an imaginary visitor and contained in a bottle impressed by the Grand Hôtel’s archives.

The concept for the relaunch happened in 2023, whereas Nicolas was working for Artwork Recherche Industrie on the opening of the previous Lodge Drei Berge within the small Oberland village of Mürren and started researching César Ritz and, by means of that, discovered about Moëhr.

‘My brother Vincent and I grew up in a resort run by our mom, immersed from childhood in service and gastronomy,’ says Nicholas. ‘Reviving a sleeping heritage felt pure. Vincent was then working alongside Chef Mauro Colagreco and dwelling on the previous Grand Hôtel du Cap Martin, a former resort turned residence in 1943, the place a number of unique interiors stay. It grew to become the backdrop of Moëhr, exploring by means of perfume a long-gone period on the crossroads of the golden age of hospitality and our personal childhood reminiscences.’

As soon as they hit on the concept, the brothers spent years finding out journey circumstances, perfume flacons, medication containers and silverware from the flip of the twentieth century to develop the bottle design, drawing specific inspiration from the work of Martin-Guillaume Biennais (Napoleon’s goldsmith); a set of French vintage copper savarin molds used within the Grand Hôtel’s kitchens by Chef Auguste Escoffier; and tableware from a number of different Grand Hôtels of the interval.

The ultimate result’s a glass flute made at a family-owned manufactory in Veneto, topped with a twisted cap solid in zinc (the steel of the Grand Hôtel’s unique bar counter) and labelled with the calligraphy of Mexican painter Esteban Fuentes de Maria.

The perfumes themselves vary from the powdery florals to ambery spices, however are all united by a traditional cologne high quality that makes them really feel old-world with out being stuffy. The scents are: Septime, the lightest of the household with notes of lily, benzoin and white pepper; Swann, a gently goumard mix of orange blossom and almond paste; Sinclair, a mixture of lavender, incense and olive; Jadis, a mix of rose, iris butter and pink pepper; Otis, a spicy mixture of saffron and cardamom; and the richest of the gathering, Benedict, with notes of cocoa, incense and tobacco.