ENTERTAINING WITH PANACHE Charles Masson at La Grenouille
Glorious, fragrant and extravagant floral displays.
By
Mary Alice Kellogg
Charles Masson at La Grenouille.
Masson’s signature is his ability to create environments
that involve the senses.
New
York’s elegant eatery La Grenouille, affectionately
known as “the frog pond,” has been a chic success
from its opening 43 years ago. With unwavering excellence
in cuisine, having hosted every U.S. President and dignitary
– not to mention every celeb and socialite worth their
sel de mer – since the beginning, the restaurant
is equally famous for its glorious, fragrant and extravagant
floral displays.
Here Renaissance man Charles Masson, son of the founder and
an accomplished painter, brings an artist’s eye to everything
he touches. His creative ideas for bouquets and tablescapes
are much in demand, and what better time than the holiday
season for fresh entertaining and decorating ideas? Masson
will be lecturing at FlowerSchool New York, where master florists
teach the art and aesthetic of flower arranging. One of the
settings for his classes will be La Grenouille, as Masson
shows students how to create festive winter tables and to
take a new approach to holiday entertaining.
“When we look at holiday trends over the years, so much
has been quantity over quality, people trying too hard to
be over the top,” Masson says. “More is not more
and tends to amount to impersonal clichés. It’s
like you’re not writing a poem, but a 1,200-page volume.
Worse, you lose the joy of the process.
“Creating something beautiful and unique starts with
using those objects you hold dear and creatively ‘styling’
them for the occasion,” says Masson. “They may
be inherited treasures or traditional ornaments gathered over
time, but the key is that they belong to you, your family.
The object – like the flower – must speak to you.”
Masson’s signature is his ability to create environments
that involve the senses – sight, smell, touch. With
that in mind, he advises thinking of your table as a still
life that reflects the season as well as your own tastes.
A favorite focal point for a Charles Masson table setting
is a stack of books with a candlestick on top. “Candlesticks
are wonderful elements on a table, even without candles. Think
of displaying several of your most unique tree ornaments on
candlesticks of different styles and heights, and using low
votives for light.”
Flowers, of course, are an important part of the story. Eschew
the ubiquitous poinsettia in favor of amaryllis, jasmine (which
Masson uses to evoke holiday memories of the South of France
and Morocco), tuberoses and other nontraditional fragrant
blooms. “Capture the season spontaneously, and let the
season be your guide,” says Masson. For the holidays,
that means using clementines, pomegranates, cloves, cinnamon,
vanilla beans, oranges, citrus fruits, chestnuts and kumquats.
All these – plus meaningful bibelots, flowers, herbs,
vegetables and spices – provide a structure to “create
a story using your own eye, taste, color and composition as
a guide.
“When we talk about flowers, it’s all about capturing
a moment and a time of the year,” he says. “Decorating
is like a menu – one page is classic, the other captures
the season. Extravagant bouquets are fine in some places,
but so are tiny, single-stem arrangements. Try extravagant
bouquets of fully open, ready-to-explode roses, fully open
ranunculus, or mixed anemones that open up as soon as the
room becomes warm. The flowers should not be tight, but developed,
open and loose. Not arranged.” Be sure not to place
the flowers too close to open candles – they will burn
or wilt, cautions Masson. The feeling of the table should
not be “flowers-as-an-afterthought squeezed into an
austere table setting,” he says.
Masson believes that the glow of the holidays is enhanced
with candlelight to bring the warmth indoors, and that the
objects you have on the table are as important as the flowers
and food. “You don’t have to do the easy or expected
if you are sensitive to those things around you. A decanter
of red wine with a candle behind it – use what you have
in the house.”
A typical holiday Masson tablescape might go something like
this: Wrap small bundles of wet moss or oasis in tree bark
and tie with raffia or satin ribbon. Insert a stem of mimosa
or narcissus in each. Sprinkle handfuls of fragrant dried
pink peppercorns across the table, as well as bundles of cinnamon
sticks wrapped in the same raffia or ribbon. Put tea lights
or votive candles inside carved-out clementines. Add your
special objects, and not only will the table be beautiful,
the room “will smell like Paradise.” Instead of
china, try a place setting of two transparent glass plates
with small cedar or pine needles in between the layers to
add a one-of-a-kind collage effect.
In general, Masson believes that, especially on the holidays,
hosts and hostesses needn’t be shackled with the same
old pattern. “Whenever there is a fashion/fad or tendency,
people fall into a routine. Do you need to eat turkey for
Thanksgiving or ham for Christmas every year? Why not try
quail, pheasant, squab or roast beef with Yorkshire pudding?”
Speaking of not being in lockstep, while round tables are
the norm, Masson prefers long, narrow ones – no shouting
across the centerpiece (which should always be low to the
table), and more opportunities to speak with more guests rather
than the ones to your immediate right and left only. A long
table also is optimum for what Masson calls chemin du
table, a passageway where the unified elements of the
tablescape flow – assisting conversation, good cheer
and warmth.
“Everything is possible, as long as you keep it simple
and are true to yourself,” Masson says.
Mary
Alice Kellogg is a New York-based writer and editor who specializes
in travel, spas, fashion and lifestyle reporting.
