The roof terrace looks out over Notre Dame cathedral
Darius Sanai checks in to the newest luxury hotel in Paris. Does it have the substance to match the style"
It?s a winter?s afternoon in Paris and, laden with big bags from Moynat and Hermès, and a smaller one from JAR, you decide to walk the few blocks from Place Vendôme to the Rue de Louvre, the big wheel of the Tuileries Christmas market appearing and disappearing to your right and Francois Pinault?s Bourse du Commerce museum an apparition in front of you.
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Your arrival at Madame Rêve, the newest luxury star in the unrivalled Parisian swanky hotel galaxy, is a little unexpected ? or ours was, anyway. There is no palatial lobby with a concierge desk a marble tennis court distance away from reception. The building is impressive enough, a palace from the Hausmann era, but you enter through a simple door on one corner and are immediately presented with two small reception booths beyond richly mosaiced floor area. Junior Suite at Madame Rêve
Our receptionists were young, friendly and eager ? evidently they had skipped the module of ?Parisian hauteur? at hotel school ? and soon we were rapidly whisked up via a lift, and two long, right angled corridors named after the streets that they line, to our room. The darkness of the corridors made the surprise of the room even greater: instead of a view across the street to a man in the apartment opposite sipping an espresso and smoking...