The international hospitality standards and cosmopolitan vibe of the Kimpton St Honoré Paris offer a unique escape from the stereotypical Parisian experience. With that in mind, the five-star address near Place Vendôme perfectly captures the essence of the French capital of today.
We adore a walkable city. Nothing ruins the exotic mood like fiddling with a dodgy ticket machine or spending a bus ride pressed to someone wearing a business suit in the summer heat. Luckily Paris is the most walkable of cities. Long relentlessly picturesque boulevards and winding streets past cool cafes, arty apartments and pretty patisseries.
A stone’s throw from the opera house where the Phantom himself first haunted the rafters and a short walk to the prettiest stretch of the Seine, Kimpton St Honoré Paris is in the most walkable spot of all. It’s even a short stroll from the Eurostar terminal, making it a perfect location for a no-hassle weekend break in France‘s city of love if you’re channel-hopping from London.
Here in the eclectic 2nd arrondissement, you’re free to splurge at the chic fashion stores that abound near the Rue Montorgueil street market, stroll along ornate old-world covered walkways like Galerie Vivienne, or indulge your appetites at the ramen eateries in the city’s main Japanese quarter along Rue Sainte-Anne.
Originally three separate buildings now combined beneath one striking Art Deco facade, the Kimpton St Honoré Paris cuts a fittingly stylish figure. Its 123 guest rooms and 26 elegant suites are spacious and display a minimalist, art nouveau aesthetic.
Perfect for | Fly into | Right on time |
The Insider | CDG | GMT +1 |
While you’re Out There |
If you’re a movie fan, retrace the steps of Jesse and Celine, the star-crossed lovers of Richard Linklater’s 2004 indie romance Before Sunset. You’ll start at the world-famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore, where Hemingway, Fitzgerald et al. lived the fin de siècle artist dream. Then flaneur down winding Rues toward Le Pure Cafe, the most filmed cafe in Paris, before taking a short boat cruise past Notre Dame. |
We arrived in our vast Charles Zana Studio-designed corner suite to find a bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket by a plush sofa (a contemporary take on Art Deco to pay homage to the building it’s in), curtains flung wide to a picture postcard view of the Eiffel Tower just in time for the nightly light show. Our suite came with an enormous free-standing bath perfect for drinking that equally enormous glass of bubbly and pretending to read Proust.
The hotel’s restaurant Montecito, takes guests travelling across the pond and beyond the North American continent, offering a healthy Californian-inspired menu that makes a welcome change from the heavy raclette and mussels on every other street. The breakfast in bed – consisting of pastries, eggs and coffee – while the sun came up and the streets woke up below us, made for a perfect first morning.
If you want to balance out the bread and cheese further, Kimpton’s state-of-the-art gym and indoor pool are on standby. Then you can cool down with a drink on the roof terrace (also Californian, it’s called Sequoia) with a 360-degree view of the city and of course, the Opéra de Paris.
Staff were uniformly kind, courteous and helpful so we had to go elsewhere to have the authentic Parisian experience of being growled at by a waiter for trying to give him money. A very welcome change, this was!
Photography by Jerome Galland, courtesy of Kimpton Hotels