Town’s latest motels placing a contemporary twist on traditional stylish
The constructing that homes the Kimpton St Honoré Paris was initially house to the Samaritaine de Luxe division retailer. In a curious coincidence, the Kimpton just isn’t the one new lodge on the town to have opened up in a former department of La Samaritaine. Down by the Pont Neuf, the Cheval Blanc Paris has opened as a part of a 16-year redevelopment of La Samaritaine’s flagship constructing.
With its gleaming double-height foyer, Cheval Blanc Paris makes a dramatic first impression. Within the rooms, designer Peter Marino’s glossy-yet-subdued interiors give pleasure of place to the lodge’s biggest asset: its extraordinary views.
No different lodge in Paris provides such front-row views throughout the Seine, because the Cheval Blanc.
No different lodge in Paris provides such front-row views throughout the Seine. In case your finances doesn’t stretch to one of many premium river-facing suites, the identical panorama may be soaked up from the lodge’s all-day bistro, Le-Tout Paris, considered one of 4 in-house eating places and bars together with Plénitude, from three-Michelin star chef Arnaud Donckele.
For now, town could also be contemporary out of department shops to renovate, however Paris is rarely in need of historic buildings able to be repurposed. In Pigalle, Soho Home lately opened its first Paris property in a mansion that was as soon as the household house of Jean Cocteau.
With its gleaming double-height foyer, Cheval Blanc Paris makes a dramatic first impression.
The corporate’s in-house design crew has paid tribute to the artist with drawings in Cocteau’s free-flowing type adorning the stairwell, and sourced a variety of opulent furnishings – canopied beds, classic velvet sofas and cloth patterns from Maison Pierre Frey’s archive – to harmonise with unique options equivalent to plaster mouldings and imposing wood doorways.
Over within the second arrondissement, Lodge du Sentier shares its constructing with town’s oldest coated passageway, the Passage du Caire. It’s simple sufficient to seek out: simply search for the carved heads of the Egyptian goddess Hathor and you recognize you might be in the suitable place. (The Passage du Caire was conceived in the course of the “Egyptomania” that swept France after Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, which can also be mirrored within the names of close by streets such because the rue du Nil and rue d’Alexandrie.)
Lodge du Sentier is simple sufficient to seek out: simply search for the carved heads of the Egyptian goddess Hathor.
This lodge is homely in the most effective sense of the phrase, with house owners Charlotte and Samuel Castro emphasising the non-public contact. The truth is, Charlotte Castro says, “I really feel so strongly about this mission that the primary 12 months, I feel that I’ll personally stroll every visitor to their room.”
Ornamentation is eschewed: “no ornament, solely supplies” is the Castro motto. The lodge restaurant has comforting classics equivalent to blanquette de veau on the menu, whereas the house owners’ dedication to sustainability is demonstrated by shortening meals provide chains and decking out workers in vegan leather-based Dr. Martens boots.
Additionally working the home-away-from-home vibe is J.Okay. Place Paris. For its first foray outdoors Italy, the boutique lodge group selected a Left Financial institution location between the Boulevard St Germain and the Seine, near the Musee d’Orsay.
The bottom ground of the J.Okay. Place lodge consists of a sequence of sitting rooms flowing into one another, after which on to the restaurant and bar.
In line with J.Okay. Place’s low-key type, the doorway to the lodge – previously the Norwegian embassy – is so discreet that it’s simple to stroll proper previous. Inside, the bottom ground consists of a sequence of sitting rooms flowing into one another, after which on to the restaurant and bar. Sofas and armchairs are organized to offer loads of inviting nooks to sit down, and facet tables are piled excessive with shiny espresso desk books to browse.
The lodge’s opening could have been badly timed – only a matter of months after it opened its doorways on the finish of 2019, France plunged into its first lockdown – however in each different side, the lodge hits the mark. Hovering ceilings and panelled partitions – oak in a single room, plaster reliefs in one other – present the right backdrop for the eclectic furnishings, a mixture of bespoke items and gadgets that designer Michele Bonan sourced from Paris’ flea markets, together with a set of lamps by Jacques Adnet for Hermes. Every room is individually embellished, however marble fireplaces and handmade Italian beds are customary difficulty.
The J.Okay. Place lodge in Paris can’t be forgotten for its personalised hospitality.
Many motels declare to deal with their friends as household; J.Okay. Place is likely one of the few that delivers on that promise, from small touches equivalent to free mini-bars, to genuinely heat, personalised service. (This crew will always remember how you’ve your espresso, or martini.)
A spa, fitness center (private coaching is on the market on request) and a glass-enclosed courtyard restaurant that serves up very good Italian meals are the icing on the cake.
Every thing in regards to the Madame Reve lodge is attention-getting, from the woody scent that permeates its corridors to its location.
In fact, the low-key strategy just isn’t for everybody. When you would like a lodge that dials up the drama slightly, Madame Reve Lodge could fit your type. Every thing about this lodge is attention-getting, from the woody scent that permeates its corridors to its location, across the nook from the Louvre and proper subsequent door to town’s latest museum, the Pinault Assortment at La Bourse.
Unusually for a boutique property, the lodge has two eating places in addition to a spa, and its burnished color palette envelops even essentially the most compact rooms with a heat glow. Nonetheless, it’s in its public areas that Madame Reve actually shines.
It’s a toss-up as to which space is essentially the most memorable. A 1000 square-metre rooftop – straddled with Eiffel-inspired girders that create a parasol impact – offers an inviting summer time playground, however the Madame Reve Café is Paris at its seductive greatest. The magnificent double-height area, with its wood bar, its imposing columns and its cascading drapes, was initially designed as a put up workplace corridor – a reminder of one more factor we envy within the French: their potential to carry a way of event to any exercise, even one as mundane as posting a letter.
It’s in its public areas that Madame Reve actually shines.
MORE
Kimpton St Honoré Paris kimptonsthonoreparis.com
Cheval Blanc Paris chevalblanc.com
Soho Home Paris sohohouse.com
Lodge du Sentier hoteldusentier.com
Madame Reve madamereve.com
The author stayed as a visitor of Kimpton St Honoré Paris and Madame Reve.
