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Ahoueke Hilaire
A table at Papillon, four guests in floral shirts, blue wall and the house sign behind.

Papillon · Bordeaux · 2025

Papillon, Bordeaux: blowtorched cocktails and street food on the Chartrons quays

Papillon is a California-leaning cocktail bar on the quai des Chartrons in Bordeaux, with its own street food and a weekend brunch. The series was shot in May 2025, in the room and at the counter.

Services
Bar photography, Cocktails, Street food, Bordeaux
Credits
Papillon

Context

Papillon sits at 8 quai des Chartrons in Bordeaux, with a west-facing terrace on the quays. The house, run by Dimitrios Fanaras and Cédric Voisin, combines a California-leaning cocktail bar with street food made on site and a weekend brunch. The decor states itself: a hard blue wall, a poster of a camper van and palm trees, tiki mugs, Mexican skulls, potted cacti. The series was shot in May 2025.

Challenge

A venue with an identity this strong poses the opposite problem to a neutral room: there is nothing to add and everything to avoid spoiling. The blue of the wall is saturated enough to tint faces, the floral shirts compete with the plates, and the cocktails come in cut crystal, which is to say in surfaces that catch everything. On top of that came a subject that does not repeat: the flamed service, where spices cross the flame of a blowtorch above the glass.

Approach

Gestures were treated as events rather than poses: the burst of sparks, the flower set with tweezers, the first bite. Each was taken as it happened, at a shutter speed high enough to hold the sparks sharp without killing the flame in the frame. The blue wall served as a full background for the tight frames, and the same dish was shot again a step back to let the decor return: two images, two uses, the menu and the feed. The table scenes were built horizontal and vertical on site, within the same series.

Deliverables

A series covering the bar, the plates and the room, horizontal and vertical. The tight frames work on the menu, the table scenes in publication.

Usage rights

The exact scope of the licence is not restated here. Releases are on file for everyone appearing in frame.

Outcome

The series documents the venue as it stood in May 2025, decor, menu and service included. See also the food photography pillar.

Credits

Client
Papillon, Bordeaux
Place
8 quai des Chartrons, Bordeaux
Production
May 2025
Services
Bar photography, cocktails, street food, room scenes

Excessive drinking is harmful to health. Please drink responsibly.

Spices thrown through a blowtorch flame above an amber long drink, a burst of orange sparks.
The spices cross the blowtorch flame and fall back onto the glass. The burst lasts under a second, and never repeats the same way twice.
Garnish tweezers setting a purple and yellow pansy on the crushed ice of an orange cut crystal glass.
The flower set with tweezers, on crushed ice. The cut crystal does all the work with the light on the timber counter.
Hand setting a filled taco on an oval dish, blue tiki mug with mint and a carved figure behind.
A taco, a tiki mug and a carved figure: the house holds its own setting, and the frame only has to let it in.
White plate with a guacamole and bacon toast and a folded quesadilla, set on a wooden chair.
The plate alone, on a wooden chair in full light. This is the menu frame, the one that has to hold with no setting at all.
Hand holding a toast with guacamole, bacon, red onion and coriander, against a hard blue wall.
Held in front of the blue wall of the room. The blue is saturated enough to work as a studio ground without being one.
The same toast held at arm’s length, potted cactus, pink drink and tiki mug blurred behind, blue wall.
A step back and the setting returns: cactus, pink drink, tiki mug. Two images, two uses.
Bearded, tattooed man biting into a quesadilla, a second guest in a floral shirt behind him.
The bite. This is the frame you cannot ask for: you wait for it to happen and you are ready beforehand.
Four guests in floral shirts eating and toasting around a table, blue wall and the house sign behind.
The table, horizontal. Floral shirts, tiki mugs, a Mexican skull, cacti: nothing was brought in for the photograph.
The same table vertical under the Papillon poster, printed camper van and palms, cocktails in the foreground.
The same scene vertical, under the house poster. Both formats are made in camera, not by cropping.

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