Single-source timber
Rails, legs and racetrack for one table come from the same billet, so the grain runs continuously around the rail instead of jumping at every joint. Off-cuts become the chip tray and card shoe.
Poker tables carved from exclusive woods, chips finished by hand.
Consulat Nanterre is a small workshop and private poker club atelier. We design and build tournament-grade card tables from rare hardwood billets — walnut burl, Macassar ebony, olive ash, wild cherry — and press matching clay-composite chip sets with your club's own artwork. One cabinetmaker, one finisher and one chip artisan stay with your project from first sketch to the day the felt is stretched.
Bespoke tournament tables
Custom chip sets
Club fit-outs
Restoration & care
Request a call back
Tell us what you are building — a club floor, a single heirloom table, or a chip set for a private league. A cabinetmaker replies by email within two working days with sketches and a wood availability list.
18 Years
at the same bench
240+ Tables
built to order
31 Species
of hardwood in store
Lifetime
refinishing support
About | The atelier
A workshop first, a poker brand second.
Consulat Nanterre began as a private card room where the host grew tired of folding tables and plastic chips. What started as one walnut table for eight friends became a full atelier: a timber store, a finishing room and a chip press, run by people who play the game they build for.
We do not warehouse mass-produced frames and reskin them. Every commission starts with a conversation about the room, the light, the elbows around the rail and the way your club actually plays — then we open the timber store and choose the boards together.
- Solid hardwood rails and legs — never veneered chipboard cores.
- Grain-matched racetracks cut from a single billet per table.
- Chip artwork pressed in-house, not outsourced to a print shop.
- Named craftsperson assigned to your build from sketch to delivery.
Why us | Difference
What separates our bench from a catalogue supplier
Most poker tables are assembled from identical flat-pack parts and finished in a spray booth two continents away. Ours are drawn, cut, pressed and polished by the same small team — and we can tell you which tree each rail came from.
Chips pressed in-house
Our chip artisan mixes clay composite, presses the mould and applies inlays on site. Edge spots, club monograms and tournament denominations stay under one roof — and under one quality standard.
Tournament-honest surfaces
Speed cloth tension, rail height and cup placement are set to competitive-room standards, then tested with a full nine-hand session before anything leaves the workshop.
Rooms, not just furniture
For club fit-outs we plan dealer circulation, seat spacing, lighting temperature and acoustic softening, so a room with four tables still feels calm at full occupancy.
Lifetime refinishing
Cloth wears and wood moves. Every table we build can come back to the bench for re-felting, rail re-wrapping and finish renewal — for as long as the table exists.
Documented provenance
Each build ships with a signed record card: species, origin of the boards, moisture readings, finish schedule and the initials of everyone who worked on it.
Materials | Timber store
Exclusive woods, selected board by board
We buy small, rare lots — storm-fallen, salvaged or sustainably harvested — and rest them in the workshop until they are stable. Below are the species most often chosen for rails and racetracks.
European walnut burl
Chocolate figure with swirling burl clusters. The classic club rail — warm under the forearm and forgiving with age.
Macassar ebony
Near-black with amber stripes. Reserved for statement tables where the rail should read as a single dark ribbon.
Ancient olive
Dense, honey-toned and wildly figured. Salvaged from retired groves, so no two rails are ever alike.
Wild cherry
Starts rose-gold and deepens to russet over the first years of play — a table that visibly records its own history.
Quilted hard maple
Pale, luminous and three-dimensional under low light. Ideal for rooms that need brightness without gloss.
Smoked bog oak
Fumed to a deep grey-brown with visible medullary rays. The most robust choice for high-traffic club floors.
Chips | Pressing room
Chip sets with your club pressed into the clay
A table sets the room; the chips set the ritual. We press clay-composite chips with a satin surface that stacks cleanly, riffles without clatter and keeps its edge after thousands of hands.
- Custom edge-spot patterns and club monograms in up to four colours.
- Tournament denomination sets, cash-game sets, or unnumbered club chips.
- Hot-stamped or inlaid centre artwork, matched to your table's finish.
- Racks, carriers and chip trays cut from the same timber as your rail.
Process | From sketch to felt
Four unhurried stages
A commission usually runs between ten and sixteen weeks. Nothing is rushed, and you see the work at every stage — photographs from the bench land in your inbox each Friday.
Consultation
We talk through the room, the seat count, how your club plays and how the table should feel at 3 a.m. You receive hand sketches and a shortlist of species.
Timber selection
You choose the actual boards — in person or by video walk-through of the timber store. Moisture is checked and the billet is reserved under your name.
Build & press
The frame is joined, the rail bent and wrapped, the cloth tensioned. In parallel, your chip mould is cut and the first press samples are approved.
Delivery & care
We install on site, level the table, hand over the record card, and book the first care visit. Refinishing support then stays open for life.
Collections | Table families
Four builds, endlessly configurable
Each family is a starting geometry, not a fixed product. Seat counts, rail profiles, cup types, dealer positions and inlay work are decided during your consultation.
The nine-seat tournament oval
Our reference build: a 2.4-metre oval with a dealer notch, recessed drink wells set below rail level and a racetrack wide enough to rest a forearm through a long final table. Solid hardwood rail over a shock-absorbing core.
- Nine players plus dealer position
- Grain-matched racetrack in your chosen species
- Speed cloth tensioned to competitive standard
The round salon table
An eight-seat round build for rooms where conversation matters as much as the cards. A reversible top converts it to a dining surface, so the table earns its place between game nights.
- Reversible dining top with felt underside
- Pedestal base in matched timber
- Integrated chip trays at every seat
The heads-up cabinet
A compact two-player table for studies and small apartments, with a lift-off top and a lower cabinet that stores chips, decks, cut cards and a dealer button in fitted trays.
- Fits rooms from 2.4 by 2.4 metres
- Fitted interior for two chip sets
- Available in every species we stock
The club floor series
Matched multi-table programmes for private clubs and hotel card rooms: consistent rail height and finish across every table, with numbered seat plaques and a shared spare-parts kit.
- Three to twelve tables in one finish batch
- Layout planning and lighting guidance
- Scheduled maintenance visits
Voices | Club hosts
What hosts say after a season of play
The rail is one unbroken piece of walnut and you can feel it. After a year of weekly games there is not a single lifted seam, and the cloth still plays as fast as day one.
They rebuilt our whole card room — six matched tables, one finish batch. Guests notice the consistency before they notice anything else about the space.
The chip set is the part I did not expect to love. Our monogram is pressed into the clay, not printed on it, and the stacks sound right in the hand.
Questions | Before you write
Frequently asked
Most single tables take ten to sixteen weeks from approved sketch to delivery, depending on the
species and whether the timber needs further resting. Club fit-outs of three or more tables are
scheduled in batches and typically run one season.
Yes, and we encourage it. Clients visit the timber store or join a video walk-through where we
hold boards up to the light one at a time. Once you choose, the billet is labelled with your
project number and set aside.
They do not, but most clients tie them together. A common approach is to pull the chip edge
spots from the table's finish tones and press the club monogram into the centre inlay. Chip sets
can also be commissioned on their own, without a table.
Often, yes. Send photographs of the rail, the underside of the frame and any damaged area, and
we will tell you honestly whether a restoration is worthwhile or whether the frame is beyond
saving. We never recommend work a table does not need.
Every table ships with a care card and a small tin of the same finish we used. Wipe with a dry
cloth, keep the room between 40 and 60 percent humidity, and book a bench visit when the cloth
starts to slow. Refinishing support has no expiry date.
We do. Tables travel in custom crates with the legs demounted, and larger commissions can be
accompanied by one of our team for on-site assembly. Tell us the destination in your enquiry so
we can plan crating and timber documentation early.
Contact | The bench
Tell us about the room you want to build
Write to us with a few photographs and rough dimensions. We reply by email with an honest read on what the space can take, which species suit it, and how long the work would run.
- General enquiries [email protected]
- Commissions & design [email protected]
- Care & restoration [email protected]
- Workshop hours Monday to Friday, 09:00 – 18:00 CET · Visits by appointment
Send a message
All fields are required. We answer every message from a real person at the bench.
Next step | Open the timber store
Your table already exists — it is still a board on our rack.
Book a consultation and we will walk the timber store with you, board by board, until the right one is standing under the light.