The hotel's name is a reference to the French painter Gustave Courbet, who was known for his realistic and often provocative works of art. The hotel's decor reflects this aesthetic, with lavish furnishings and ornate details.

The bedroom is dominated by the —a low, platformless structure that sits directly on a raised dais. The headboard is a single, massive sheet of hammered brass, oxidized to a dark, bruised gold. It is cold to the touch but visually steaming. Opposite the bed, there is no television. There is a 65-inch screen that plays a continuous, silent loop of Tinto Brass’s greatest montages—fragments of thighs in garters, glances over shoulders, the tying of corsets—on a loop, mirrored by the actual guest moving through the room.

The lobby abandons the concept of a "front desk." Instead, guests are greeted by a —a figure draped in deep burgundy silk, seated at a writer’s desk cluttered with vintage Italian film posters and antique opera glasses. Check-in is a ritual. You are not given a key card; you are handed a heavy, tarnished brass skeleton key attached to a blood-red tassel.

The signature dish is Oysters Three Ways (natural, grilled with bone marrow, and poached in Negroni), served on a mirrored platter so you see the underside of your own lips as you swallow. The wine list ignores France entirely; it is a deep dive into the Vini di Porco (wines of intensity) from Etna and Piemonte.