Chat Noir! At Lost Estate Opens March 2026

The Lost Estate will be launching Chat Noir! — a brand‑new event in London from 25 March 2026.

It’s the latest and most ambitious creation from the team behind The Great Christmas Feast and 58th Street. This time, expect less intrusive theatre and more of a full time‑travel experience that drops guests straight into another century. Visitors are transported to bohemian Montmartre in the 1890s, stepping inside the legendary “Le Chat Noir”, the original Parisian cabaret club that sparked a cultural revolution and helped shape modern nightlife. Entering through a secret door, guests become the aristocrats and bohemians of Montmartre, revelling in the absinthe‑fuelled temptations of the City of Lights.

At the centre of the story is Rodolphe Salis — the real‑life proprietor of Le Chat Noir and architect of its most notorious cabarets — as he prepares his final and most ambitious creation: a feverish celebration of love and madness. Played by the ‘Dandy King of Cabaret’, Joe Morrose, Salis is a man aflame with ideas, careering between anarchy and art as he chases one last moment of transcendence before the curtain falls. For this final night, he summons the greatest artists of his age — magician Buatier De Kolta (performed by Neil Kelso), dancer Cléo de Mérode, mime Paul LeGrand (performed by Pi the Mime), and chanteuse Yvette Guilbert — to create one audacious revue of love, madness and French art across the ages. They’re joined by the club’s house band, Les Enfants Vagabondes.

Led by a young Erik Satie, Les Enfants Vagabondes are a roaming troupe of virtuoso musicians who weave between tables, conjuring the spirit of bohemian Montmartre with musical performances from across the centuries. Audiences meet Satie at the height of his career as the real‑life resident pianist of the original Le Chat Noir — a composer whose work would go on to define a generation of French modernism. The ensemble performs new arrangements of French late‑Romantic masterpieces by The Lost Estate’s composer‑in‑residence, Steffan Rees. Their ragtag quintet — piano, violin, cello, accordion and percussion — reimagines Debussy’s Clair de Lune, Bizet’s Carmen, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and Saint‑Saëns’s Danse Macabre for a night that blurs the line between elegance and delirium. As the evening unfolds, performances spill from stage to floor, with musicians roaming between tables while a sequence of shadow puppetry transforms light and smoke into living art. It’s a world where sound, movement and illusion entwine, and where cabaret first sparked into a global phenomenon.

Guests become part of the story as they join the writers, illustrators, poets and musicians of Montmartre.  The experience evokes the secret suppers of Paris’s wayward aristocrats, where indulgence is an art form and pleasure a quiet rebellion.

The tables are laden with Parisian Haute Cuisine that gave birth to modern gastronomy: Coq au Vin, Crème Brûlée, champagne, absinthe, Parisian cocktails and an extensive old-world wine list. The Lost Estate  Executive Chef Ashley Clarke and Head of Beverages Ilya Demenkov have created a feast. Chat Noir! also features an emerald Bar de Absinthe, serving transportive Belle Epoque cocktails.

At Chat Noir! music, theatre, design and hospitality become a single work of art. This extraordinary immersive world is created by The Lost Estate’s Head of Design Thomas Kirk Shannon, lighting designer Mike Gunning and couture by Susan Kulkarni.

Guests may chose to dress in Vintage Parisian style – silks, velvets, waistcoats and smoky eyes. 

ONIN recently attended The Great Christmas Feast and loved it (see our review). We’ll be heading to Chat Noir! in May. I’m already looking forward to travelling back to 1890s Paris — now it’s just a matter of choosing a costume.

Website: https://chatnoirlondon.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lostestateofficial