✓ Covetable interiors
✓ Rooftop bar
✓ Warm and friendly staff
✓ Convenient for Nord Marais and train stations

A boulevard lined with Irish bars and discount shops seems an odd location for a luxury boutique hotel, yet the entrance – with its oversized gates festooned with playful signage, plant-pot-lined pathway and lobby stocked with newspapers and brollies – is wonderfully enticing.

Hotel des Grands Boulevards is part of the highly successful Experimental Group, who enlisted (for the third time in as many hotel openings) celebrity designer Dorothée Meilichzon to create smart yet playful interiors. Yet again they have adopted the ‘bed and beverage’ approach, focusing on the city’s booming cocktail culture and appetite for contemporary bar design that has become integral to their brand.

Who stays here? 

Young professionals, groups of friends, couples. The bars and restaurants were busy with locals when we visited – Experimental Group seems to hold the secret recipe of creating bubbly neighbourhood haunts overnight.

Rooms 

The fifty bedrooms were inspired by Marie Antoinette’s interior and fashion style and feature a limited palette of salmon pink, slate blue and terracotta; geometric carpets; a mix of bespoke and rustic furniture; cleverly placed mirrors; and lots of drapery. The result is calming, feminine and elegant.

Amenities include vintage-style radios, USB plugs next to the bed, espresso machines with sweet little handmade cups and complimentary mineral water. The minibar included the usual miniatures, gourmet popcorn and crisps, and a freshly shaken ECC cocktail in a stoppered bottle.

Most rooms face the courtyard – request one with a private terrace.

Bathrooms are pink, white and marble. It was a joy to rifle through the branded drawstring pouch of  mixed-brand toiletries, which included products from Ren, Codage and Sachajuan. It was intended as a souvenir so I swiped mine.

Food and drink

Breakfast is continental with eggs cooked to order. The buffet includes loaf cakes, fresh fruit, yogurt and compotes. Juice is freshly squeezed. Tableware is handmade and rustic. Room service is available.

Grand Restaurant is the hotel’s main dining space set in a courtyard with a retractable glass roof. The menu is classic Italian and the vibe is one of an all-day brasserie. Elsewhere, craft cocktails are served at The Shell, an intimate and sultry bar decorated in shades of red and Burgundy, and the laid-back roof bar hosts live DJ sets on summer weekends.

Design details

Design motifs such as the shell and scalloped edges are repeated throughout the interior design and branding, which is considered, consistent and reflective of the brand’s overall playful mood. The graphic design is wonderful throughout – room numbers, way-finding and in-room literature are cohesive and full of personality.

Service 

The reception staff are particularly warm and welcoming. Check in is quick and efficient, and their guest recognition is excellent (each time we came returned to the hotel during our stay, we were handed the correct room key). The service tone is a good balance of pleasantly informal and reassuringly professional.

Things to do

In the immediate vicinity, I’d recommend a quick browse at L’Appartement Sezane en route to Musée des Arts et Métiers, then stop at Le Sancerre for coffee (or a glass of wine…) before lunch at Le Mary Celeste. You’re then right by the Picasso Museum, Merci concept store and Places des Vosges, to fill the afternoon.

Packing list

101 Parisian chic: The best black skinny jeans, black jumper and black coat you can afford. Sunglasses, gold hoops, lipstick. And New Balance trainers, as the central location is ideal for walking.

Getting there

The hotel is a minute’s walk from Grands Boulevards metro station (lines 8 and 9).

17 Boulevard Poissonnière, 75002
grandsboulevardshotel.com