RAISE YOUR GLASS: The living area of Francois Payard’s Turtle Bay apartment includes a bar and a staircase to a sleeping loft. Above the bar is a “chandelier” that is home to wine glasses instead of lights.
Wine storage (above) and a refrigerator are in the hall. (photo by Elizabeth Lippman)
Kitchen Equipment (photo by Elizabeth Lippman)
Chef Francois (photo by Elizabeth Lippman)
His watch collection (photo by Elizabeth Lippman)
NOW YOU’RE COOKING: The pastry chef remade and enlarged the kitchen — “as big as I could” — and put in KitchenAid appliances, Calacatta marble counters and blue tile. (photo by Elizabeth Lippman)
Award-winning pastry chef Francois Payard has a mischievous gleam in his eye when he teases his wife, Fernanda Capobianco, about her design for their sparkling white apartment.
“Fernanda loves everything white,” he says. “She thinks we’re in Brazil.”
But instead of a coastal retreat in Rio, they’re living in a 1929 condop in decidedly urban Turtle Bay.
“We bought the apartment in 2010,” says Payard, who has two patisseries and a chocolate shop in New York (with a third bakery opening at 3 Columbus Circle next month), as well as locations in Las Vegas, Japan and South Korea. “We bought it because I was living on the Upper East Side in a rental and the rent kept going up. I thought, it’s time for me to buy an apartment.”
The couple looked around for six months before finding the ideal pad. “The high ceilings [measuring 14 feet] really captivated us,” Payard says.
In the apartment’s 1,400 square feet is a bedroom, a sleeping loft, two bathrooms and a loft-like living room that encompasses a bar area, a dining area and a place to watch TV.
“When I first saw it, I saw in my head what I wanted to do,” Payard says. “The loft room was filled with room dividers and broken up into little sections. I decided to take down everything.”
That was the beginning of four months of construction. Not only were the room dividers cleared out, but also new hardwood floors were laid and a big walk-in closet for Capobianco was added, as was an onyx bar. Then the whole place was rewired.
“All the wiring was bad,” Payard says. “We did it like when you build a restaurant. We did it right from the beginning to avoid problems later on. So it was a big job. But now it looks like a better apartment.”
And, as befits a chef, the home’s kitchen was completely redone.
“I made the kitchen as big as I could,” Payard says. “The ceiling in the kitchen was very low, and I made it high like the rest of the space.”
He added a Jenn-Air refrigerator (which is actually in a nook in the hall, so it doesn’t take up precious cooking space), a KitchenAid oven and dishwasher, cabinets with opaque glass doors (“You want to see inside, but not too much,” Payard says), Calacatta marble counters, a porcelain floor and blue tile.
“I love a kitchen to be colorful,” he says. “I don’t like to feel sad in the kitchen.”
The apartment’s new layout fits Payard’s lifestyle quite well: “The great thing about it is that it allows me to have dinner in one spot, a cocktail in another and, when I’m finished with that, I can watch TV in the TV room.”
Another great thing, he notes, is the storage space. In addition to storage near the kitchen, “We put in a tremendous area for storage near the hall ceiling. I created this big space because the ceiling is so high.”
Then Capobianco (who also owns a bakery; hers is called Vegan Divas) started decorating — using white, and lots of it. There’s a white linen couch with two pale-teal accent pillows, a white cowhide rug they bought in Colombia, a buttery-soft white leather Eames chair with a matching footstool, white linen curtains, white orchids in clear glass vases, Lucite “Ghost” dining room chairs by Philippe Starck and a “chandelier” over the bar that, instead of lights, holds wine glasses.
For a dash of color, she added two green palms. And also artwork. Covering the walls are paintings by Frenchman Denis Héraud, Brazilian Eduardo Garcia and more.
There’s also what Capobianco calls a “gallery wall” — shelves brimming with books (mostly cookbooks), antiques and memorabilia.
“Everywhere I go,” Payard says, “I try to bring a little piece home. I brought back a bowl from Korea, an elephant from Thailand, an antique vase from Italy and so much more.”
But Payard’s next destination is closer to home; on the weekend of May 10-13, he’s participating in Vegas Uncork’d by Bon Appetit (vegasuncorked.com). It’s a culinary extravaganza that involves 50 chefs, 30 sommeliers, four hotels (The Cosmopolitan, Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Mandalay Bay) and 30 events.
“I do this event ever since it started six years ago,” Payard says. “Where else do you see four or five of the best chefs from Europe: Alain Ducasse, Joel Robuchon, Guy Savoy, Pierre Gagnaire and Francois Payard? We’re all together in one city.”
Payard, whose accolades include the James Beard Foundation’s Pastry Chef of the Year in 1995 and the Dom Perignon Award of Excellence in 2010, will host a Master Series dinner and a Master Pastry class at Caesars Palace. He’ll also be at the Grand Tasting at Caesars’ Garden of the Gods.
Then it’s back home where Capobianco says she has more decorating and reconstruction plans. “In the old apartment [on the Upper East Side],” she says, “there were so many antiques it was like a museum. But I have different taste. And now this apartment is modern, simple and spare.”
FRANCOIS PAYARD’S FAVORITE THINGS
* The “wine cellar” inanook in the hall, next to the refrigerator
* His kitchen equipment that includes Japanese knives andamicroplane zester,a Kitchen Aid Artisan Mixer and a Soda Stream
* Bernardaud Limoges dinnerware
* Silver table settings that his parents gift to him every year
* An 1899 caramel machine and antique coffee grinder that belonged to his grandfather
* Acommemorative plate celebrating Charles Lindbergh and the first solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927
* The artwork
* His watch collection, which includes antiques and brands like Piaget and Vacheron Constantin