The 7 Places To Stay Right Now

While travel came to a standstill when the pandemic hit almost a year and a half ago, a handful of hoteliers kept the show running in Paris by opening spots that range from cool, design-forward hotels to a palatial addition on the grounds of the Chateau de Versailles just outside the city. As life starts up again, it’s time to celebrate these new hotels in Paris you’ll want to keep up your sleeve for your next visit to the city.

Hotel Rochechouart

Anyone who has walked through Pigalle’s neon-lit stretch of sex shops will know that this particular spot in the area had yet to be rejuvenated to resemble the nearby streets and their smattering of cocktail bars, boutiques and restaurants. But that’s about to change with the arrival of Hotel Rochechouart. Stepping out of the shadows of its former shell as the nondescript Charleston Hotel, the Art Deco dancing hall’s now a low-lit restaurant with the full shebang of 1920s moldings and mosaics that have been dusted off and brought back to life by Parisian interior design outfit Festen. Today, the restaurant is drawing the crowds for the singular ambience that plunges diners come to feast on French classics into a Godfather-like setting. With 106 rooms the hotel is surprisingly large for its coveted location between South Pigalle and Montmartre. There are polished mohagany headboards and vintage style velvet black or rust-hued couches, and some rooms have views of the gleaming white Sacré Coeur Basilica that are the best in town. If you haven’t managed to nab yourself a top-floor room, you’ll be able to admire the view from the rooftop bar with 360° views of the Parisian rooftops and the Eiffel Tower. Even if you don’t stay here, it’s worth dropping by for a drink. Part of the Orso Collection, they group’s also opened several spots in Paris, including Hotel Ami, the most recent.

Le Grand Contrôle

The pitch for this next hotel is is a pretty easy sell. If you’ve ever dreamt of sleeping inside the Chateau de Versailles, France’s most extravagant palace, then this is the place. Le Grand Contrôle opened at the start of the month under Les Airelles banner, a small group of hotels that’s been picking up momentum with its recent transformations including the Chateau de la Messardière close to Saint Tropez. Inside one of the buildings on the Versailles Chateau grounds adjacent to the meticulously carved Orangerie gardens à la française, this spot is all about extravagance harping back to the time of the Sun King Louis XIV. Bringing three buildings together, including the Grand Contrôle, originally Versailles officers’ mess, architect Christophe Tollemer, who worked with Monuments Historiques, took his cues from Marie-Antoinette’s Petit Trianon palace also on site. Guests have the choice of 14 light-filled suites with gilt moldings above marble fireplaces and lofty ceilings from which hang ornate chandeliers that echo the designs of the flower-patterned fabric wall coverings specially created by maison Pierre Frey. While you could spend the day immersed in the atmosphere of your room, the Alain Ducasse restaurant is worth stepping out for. Guests tuck into revisited 18th-century classics served alongside views of the Orangerie gardens. There is also a moodily-lit Valmont Spa with private pool, the possibility of having picnics on the chateau lawn, a private tour of the chateau’s Galerie des Glaces, usually crawling with tourists, dinner for two in the Orangerie gardens, and a peek inside Marie-Antoinette’s private hamlet also on site.

Hotel Chouchou

The unassuming Chouchou Hotel is a cheerful addition to the city’s hotel scene, tucked in the backstreets of Opéra and a five-minute walk to all the big department stores on Haussmann Boulevard. The pretty stone building has two entrances. The first leads to the buzzy open-plan guinguette-style (dancing hall) restaurant festooned with twinkling lights and leafy plants, where there’s often a big screen for watching soccer games and a stage for live music. The highlight here is the casual seafood platters of whelks, prawns and oysters by Breton seafood producers La Mer à Boire. They also rustle up a mean crab roll. If you fancy something more turf than surf, there are also ham and cheese boards. The second entrance to the right takes you through a quiet mirrored hallway to the hotel reception. You’re met by the personable Guillaume by night and soft-spoken Inna by day. Upstairs are the rooms, three of which have been decorated like the homes of French singers. My suite was the Serge Gainsbourg suite. If I told you the walls were all black, the floors too, and there was a huge circular bathtub leading from a glass-wrapped shower in the center of the room across from a black leather couch, you’d probably be tempted to go for another room. But thanks to carefully curated details, it all worked and really felt like staying in the guest room of the wild child of French chanson‘s rue de Verneuil home in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Even the black chair molded to look like a kneeling woman’s behind felt appropriate somehow. There are handpicked novels you’ll be tempted to stay in and read and a real piano. Across the street, you’ll also be able to peek at the neighbor enjoying her enviably large terrace in the sunlight. And if that doesn’t do the trick, then you can opt for another suite like L’Arrache Coeur, which has a tamer color scheme and a view of the opera house, or one of the hotel’s deep blue hued rooms with pops of coral.

Hotel Paradiso

A “movie hotel” might sound like a gimmick, but this spot works surprisingly well. Opened by brothers Nathanaël and Elisha Karmitz who head up France’s MK2 movie theater chain, the 34-room Hotel Paradiso has a cozy, intimate feel. Each room is thoughtfully designed so it’s a perfect cocoon for watching movies old and new. The big bouncy beds have huge cushions for lying on your elbows while digging into a bucket of popcorn. The spaces feel hushed thanks to thick sound-absorbing fabrics, creating a soothing quality you find in cinemas. To ensure the design was just right, the brothers worked with a team including artistic director Sarah Kahn, interior designer Alix Thomsen and light designer Philippe Collet. The hotel is slotted in next to one of the family movie theaters, meaning if you miss the actual cinema experience, you can always head downstairs and book a ticket. Alternatively, for a more private experience, there’s the booth from which you can watch a film projected in the cinema with five pals. There’s also a private screening room tucked away upstairs that can be rented all night long for movie night parties or karaoke. The pièce de résistance of the Paradiso though is the rooftop with an Eiffel Tower view, that’s laid out with striped deck chairs in summer for an outdoor cinema experience. The brothers are also launching the Festival Paradiso, an open-air film festival with DJs and food trucks, in the spectacular setting of the Louvre’s square court on July 1-4. The festival is free but bookings must be made ahead.

Hotel Les Deux Gares

The Hotel Les Deux Gares should have opened with a bang to match to match its eye-popping palette. For his Touriste brand’s fourth property, hotelier Adrien Gloaguen tasked British designer Luke Edward Hall to reimagine this tired station hotel. The offbeat location is half the appeal, giving visitors the chance to stray from the tourist track. Slotted in between two of Paris’s main stations including Gare du Nord and it’s Eurostar terminal linking the city to London. It’s also close to Little India on a street of Indian sweet shops. If you’re a curry fan, then you’ll be spoilt for choice. If you’re not, you have the hotel’s Café Les Deux Gares across the road, which is a favorite with food journalists and the local crowd. Also overhauled by Edward Hall, this timeless spot with an Art Deco twist, and a light-reflecting faux tortoise shell ceiling by artist Pauline Leyravaud, looks like it’s always been here. Back inside the hotel, no wall has been left white. Geometric patterns are set against brightly colored walls in the lobby, the designer’s hand painted portraits of activists like Angela Davis and literary figures like Oscar Wilde, sit with auction-house finds. Rooms have open sky views and on the fifth floor, they come with balconies. Having inched closer to Britain with this location, Gloaguen’s now headed for London for his next hotel, the Chrysos, steps from Paddington Station, just north of Hyde Park.

Pley Hotel

Despite the impressive number of hotels in Paris, there are still areas that could do with a decent place to stay, as was the case at the top end of the Faubourg Saint Honoré between the Monceau Park and Champs-Elysées – until now. An unassuming spot with plenty of pockets to take you by surprise, the Pley Hotel has comfortable spacious rooms, some of which give you a peek at the Eiffel Tower. As an ode to the area’s history as a hub for French radio stations, a smattering of memorabilia like vintage radios and a selection of handpicked vinyl records serve to give the place a pop of color and personality. Artworks hang on the walls, like Julien Nédélec‘s installation showing radio’s first ever phrase: “One, Tow, Three, Four, is it snowing where you are?” as well as black and white archive photography immortalizing radio shows. There’s a recording studio in the basement behind a curtained bar and a tucked-away alcove for even greater privacy. On the ground floor, the open plan restaurant has lots of leafy plants reaching up towards the light shining through the glass ceiling. Upstairs, hidden in a suite is a beauty bar with a hair salon, but the greatest draw is the rooftop terrace, which, surrounded by apartments, feels like being on a friend’s private deck. Part of the Madeho group, Pley’s little sister Sookie, a compact hotel with 50s undertones, has just opened in the Marais.

Canopy Trocadero

For its first French hotel under its Canopy lifestyle brand, and the second in Europe after Reykjavik, Hilton’s tapped French interior architect Jean-Philippe Nuel behind some of the country’s most challenging hotel conversions like the Cinq Codet and Molitor in Paris and the Hotel Dieu in Marseille. Nuel’s risen well to the challenge of bringing warmth, comfort and style steeped in Le Corbusier’s purist Art Deco style to the property. Situated in a prime spot just around the corner from the Trocadero esplanade and its marble Eiffel Tower viewing platform, as well as the Museum of Modern Art and Palais de Tokyo, the Canopy by Hilton Paris Trocadero is an open-plan space with a glass roof where the reception area flows into a hybrid space that meshes together a bar, co-working area and restaurant helmed by Robin Kubarek whose vegetable-focused cuisine is guided by zero waste and farm-to-table principles. There are high tables, low tables, couches and even a closed-off library space for more private meetings. Upstairs, rooms are spacious, sleek and well appointed. Some have balconies and terraces with deck chairs from which guests can look out over the Paris chimney tops. For an even better view that includes the Eiffel Tower, climb up to the top floor and grab a seat under a tangerine-hued umbrella pinned to the rooftop terrace where DJs often spin records into the night.