Four Seasons Hotel Madrid

Four Seasons Tenure

• Originally hired 2022; now since 2024
• First Four Seasons Assignment: Assistant Manager, Dani, Four Seasons Hotel Madrid

Employment History

• Llama Inn, Madrid; Four Seasons Hotel Madrid; Mandarin Oriental Hotels; Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts

Education

• Bachelor’s Degree, Vatel School of Hotel Management, Paris, with an exchange year in Buenos Aires

Birthplace

• Montargis, France

Languages Spoken

• French, Spanish, English

“They give me a lot of encouragement to be creative and a lot of space,” says Camille Sirault, with a smile, of her working relationship with the greater Food and Beverage department at Four Seasons Hotel Madrid. The “space” she speaks of has made her role as Restaurant and Bar Manager of Isa Restaurant and Cocktail Bar very rewarding, but it also makes good sense. “We listen to feedback from everyone, but just as important, they listen to us. After all, my team members are the ones who are face-to-face with our guests, so they really know what people like.”

The creativity that Camille brings to the vibrant outlet on the Hotel’s first floor has found new significance as Isa has ramped up to become less of a lounge and more of a restaurant, with focus as much on Asian dishes as on the award-winning cocktails that made its reputation as a hotspot on the capital city scene.

Even still, Camille works to elevate Isa’s beverage service by smoothing a path for guests to “live the experience” at the table and over the bar. She has polished the service to high gloss, training her team to connect with guests, or as she puts it, “meet them on the same level, eye to eye.”

To that end, finishing touches of many cocktails now play out just before guests take their first sip, with servers adding essential foams, bubbles, and even flames via special bar tools, and wheeling a trolley table to table to offer drinks crafted by a distinctive Japanese whiskey. The idea, she says, is “to give people a show and get them curious about the next cocktail on the menu.”

She also works closely with Isa’s Head Chef and Head Bartender to fashion special promotions and engagements. Among her successes was reshaping the slowest night of the week into one of the peppiest with “Funky Tuesdays” featuring a cocktail menu all its own. She is also all in on ISA & Friends, which combines bright nightlife and haute cuisine as visiting distillers offer themed cocktails paired with unexpected creations from the kitchen.

Camille manages her team of 16 with a sunny style to make sure that “everyone is okay, learning, and happy with us.” The level of talent makes it easy, she says, with many servers and bartenders having gotten their start at Isa when it opened along with the Hotel. Her goal is to work with everyone to ensure that the cocktail service is as creative as the cocktail menu, “and just as much fun.”

Raised in the south of Paris, Camille was inspired to outlet management on her own. She wanted to study business because that’s what her friends were doing, but she wasn’t interested going down the same the avenues. So, she enrolled at a business and hospitality school, joining a program that alternated between the classroom and internships on a bi-weekly basis.

Drawn to the service side, she started as a waitress with an international luxury hotel chain and, as she remembers, “I had stars in my eyes from the first day!”

She later moved into management with another luxury hotel group, which sent her to properties far and wide. Posted in Barcelona, she found her love of Spain, which only grew after another transfer to Shanghai was followed with a hotel opening in Madrid.

From there, Camille joined Four Seasons Hotel Madrid as Assistant Manager of Dani on the rooftop. She loved the work, enough to decline an offer from a persistent entrepreneur to lead the opening of a new independent restaurant – for a while, anyway. “I said no three times because I was already happy. But the chef was a friend from college, and I knew I could learn a lot, so in the end I took it.”

Now back again after a challenging but successful year-and-a-half away, Camille believes the reconceived Isa is the perfect fit for Madrid as the city eases into its newfound prominence as a destination for people to delight in the beauty, culture, verve, and hospitality of Spain.

She ought to know: “When I first arrived here, it took me a little while to get in the rhythm of things. Now, I feel as though I’m almost Spanish.”