Yahoo News Discover a chic new retreat in the City of Lights
Tucked down a quiet side-street in the eighth arrondissement, just off the Champs-Elysées, the latest addition to Paris’ five-star ‘La Clef’ hotel collection is a five-story Hausmannian-style building, built in 1907 and originally the home of the famous Hennessy cognac family.
With all the shops and cafés of the Champs-Elysées within easy reach and the fashionable boutiques of Avenue Montaigne just ten-minutes’ walk away, it makes a luxurious pied-à-terre for shoppers and sightseers alike.
The monochrome entrance hall once served as the carriageway to the back of the building, and its design details have all been inspired by a jewellery box. Sculptural black columns resemble strings of ornate beads, hanging lights look like delicate earrings and a large mirrored ceiling bounces light around the entire interior. Interesting touches include a long perfume bar, where guests can play with fragrance combinations and sample the hotel’s own uniquely blended scent.
Housing 70 rooms, suites and executive apartments (including two duplex one-bedroom apartments with terraces that offer views over Paris’ rooftops, towards the white domes of La Sacré-Coeur), the hotel encapsulates sleek, modern comfort at its best. Each airy, high-ceilinged room features an enormous bed made up with crisp linen, contemporary design furniture and touches of colourful art, beautifully curated bookcases, a mini kitchen and a cleverly disguised wide-screen television that doubles as a chic wall mirror (it’s so discreet we almost missed it). Marble bathrooms are stocked with gold-edged mirrors and pampering L'Occitane products, whilst monsoon showers are fitted with a unique Skinjay pod-diffusion system which resemble modern espresso capsules and, when slotted into the shower, deliver a shot of aromatic steam. Perfect for reviving weary muscles after exploring the city all day.
Day-trippers can fuel up at the delicious continental buffet breakfast, served in the salon de petit déjeuner each morning, with freshly baked pastries, organic fruit, smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, pots of yoghurt and smoothies. But it’s the newly opened fine-dining restaurant, Imperial Treasure – a low-lit, elegantly wood-panelled space, created in collaboration with the Michelin-starred Singaporean Chinese restaurant firm – that’s the real star of the show. Here, dishes cherry-picked from China’s courtly Huaiyang, Cantonese, Shanghainese and Sichuan cuisines fuse classic techniques with the finest modern ingredients – the filling in the more-ish Shanghainese ‘bao’, for example, is Iberico ham and the cod served gently steamed and dressed with chopped chillies is caught off the coast of Brittany. Other menu highlights include an impeccable crispy Peking duck (a house special) and steamed Alaskan king crab. It’s delicious, delicate and some the most sophisticated Chinese fare to be found in the City of Lights.
La Clef Champs-Élysées, from around £265 a night for an Executive room.
