Early June: Textural, Stripped-Back Interiors at a Natural Wine Bar in Paris

So often, looking at restaurants and hotels to write about, I feel like they could be anywhere—there’s nothing personable or intimate about them at all. Which is why, when I’m in another city, or even in my own, I love discovering the magic of a tiny, one-of-a-kind place that could only be in the place were it is. It’s the reason I’ve been following the newly opened natural wine bar and shop Early June on Instagram and why I’m hoping, soon, to visit in person. Take a look.

Photography courtesy of Early June.

Above: The shop and wine bar, in Paris’ 10th arrondissement, is the project of Victor and Camille, partners in life as well as wine and food. “We wanted to open a friendly and dynamic place centered around natural wine, for locals and people coming from further away,” they say. It’s a short walk from their apartment.

After the first location they had in mind fell through, they found the building that’s now Early June. “The windows were covered with a plastic sticker so you couldn’t see anything inside, the whole space was divided into offices with thin walls, everything was a bit dark and humid. There even was leopard-skin fabric on the walls of the toilets,” says Victor. “Even though we imagined all the work that had to be done, we knew it was the right place.”

The couple signed on the place in the beginning of June (hence, the name) and got to work stripping the interiors and breaking down walls to create one open space.

now, early june as a raw, textural charm. “we constructed the kitch 10 — Above: Now, Early June as a raw, textural charm. “We constructed the kitchen from scratch, because it was always our objective to have an open kitchen in the middle of the space. We have a philosophy of transparency and traceability in everything we do and serve, therefore we always wanted an open kitchen so that every client could see the kitchen preparing their dishes. We started with the counter, covered with brass from one of the oldest metal suppliers in Paris, Tartaix,” adds Victor.

a simple table, with school chairs, a glass jar to hold cutlery, and dried gras 11 — Above: A simple table, with school chairs, a glass jar to hold cutlery, and dried grasses.

“We scraped the walls and, much to our surprise, found out that they were made of very old bricks,” says Victor. “We decided to keep everything ‘in its juice’ as we say in French, meaning we preferred to reveal the walls rather than cover them with new materials. That’s how we ended up with raw pillars and walls, all the result of decades of painting that accumulated over time. We only painted the walls in white to lighten everything up.”

(For our ode to French school chairs, see Top of the Class: Vintage-Style Chairs Are Having a Moment.)