Hôtel des Grands Boulevards – 4*

REGION : Paris
ATMOSPHERE : City
STYLE : Royal HQ
CATEGORY : 4*
ROOMS : 50 rooms

Life is grand

Today, you no longer need to marry a Windsor to sleep in a bed fit for a princess… All you have to do is head to Paris and step off at the Grands Boulevards metro stop. Just across the street, more exactly at 17 boulevard Poissonnière, between the Opera and the Sentier, is the Experimental Group’s 4* hotel of the same name. The building, well known to Parisians for its restaurant and its two cocktail bars, The Shell on the ground floor and The Shed on the roof-top, was built just before the French Revolution.

ITS WALLS BECAME A CANVAS FOR INTERIOR ARCHITECT Dorothée Meilichzon to infuse a convincing Marie-Antoinette spirit, which reigns majestically, but with weighted subtlety. The clever takes and tender colors reach back to a Sofia Coppola period, which is matched with a Petit Trianon atmosphere from its canopy-like beds and its multiple references to royalty (red marble that was dear to Louis XVI, patterned carpets, beehive patterns, shells reminiscent of the Rambouillet seashell cottage…).

EVERYTHING BREATHES AN AIR OF PRACTICAL AND ROMANTIC CHIC: the 50 rooms, which are accessed with real keys, are spacious, tastefully decorated, and full of noble intentions (coffee machine, slippers, radio, refined bed linen…). The contemporary furniture (light fixtures, seats, small decoration…) whispers in a feminine hush with curves and roundness, and is well chosen, while light dances throughout thanks to the play of the multiple reflective surfaces. A nod to the hall of mirrors…

Some rooms have balconies and terraces, though all enjoy a very Versailles-like calm in the heart of Paris. A stone’s throw from the Opera, bars and theaters, this place is worth keeping in the royal section of your address book!

To do

– Lunch or dinner under the restaurant’s retractable glass roof to enjoy the Italian-influenced cuisine of Chef Giovanni Passerini and Executive Chef Sho Ashizawa.
– Enjoy a cocktail with or without alcohol in one of the hotel’s two bars, the first being on the ground floor, the second on the roof-top with a view onto the local scene
– Have a look around the urban vegetable garden growing on the terrace

The surrounding area

• Shopping in local department stores (Printemps, Galeries Lafayette…) on the Grands Boulevards
• Stroll through a centrally located neighborhood to (re)discover its disguised passages (passage des Princes, passage Verdeau, passage Jouffroy, passage des Panoramas, and its monuments (the Palais Garnier, a Second Empire gem with its painted ceiling by Marc Chagall in the Great Hall and its secret lake, the Opéra Comique, the Palais Brongniart)
• Visits of under-sung museums (wax statues at the Grévin Museum, the Chocolate Museum…)
• Sit in on an auction at Drouot
• Bars and restaurants such as the typically Parisian Bouillon Chartier as well as Racines by Simone Tondo or Joia by Hélène Darroze
• Shows, night life and theater at the Variétés, Gymnase, Nouveautés, Grand Rex, Folies-Bergère…