Au revoir, subtil, and hello, Rococo! Flamboyance and frippery now dominate Paris’s vibrant hotel scene.
Newcomers such as Le Grand Mazarin and La Fantaisie are prepping to unveil unabashedly maximalist interiors, while the Airelles Chateau de Versailles is pairing its extravagant rooms with even more excessive, hyper-elite experiences—like horseback riding in Versailles’s gardens and Champagne in the Gallery of Foreign Affairs.
It’s a dramatic change from the discrete aesthetic long celebrated in the French capital. Ushering in this foppishly florid summer is Swedish interiors architect Martin Brudnizki, who has overseen the interiors for both Le Grand Mazarin and La Fantaisie. (He’s also behind the recently opened French Hotel Barrière Fouquet’s in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood.) However, today’s version of French excess comes with more than a soupçon of mindfulness: Michelin-starred dining and tufted side chairs in prints that sometimes border on garish are paired with environmental and cultural considerations.
Here, a look at what to expect (hint: expect everything) when you check in.
Triple Play
Whimsical lamps, colorful flowers, and rich tapestry-style fabrics fill the rooms.Vincent Leroux
Set to open on June 15, Le Grand Mazarin will be a welcome five-star addition to the Marais, Paris’s famed Jewish quarter.
Operated by Maisons Pariente, which owns three other hotels across France, this new accommodation combines three 14th-century buildings to create 50 rooms and 11 suites, as well as a restaurant, two bars, a gym, a spa, an indoor pool and a hammam.
There’s never a dull moment in the hotel.Vincent Leroux
Brudnizki has swathed the bedrooms in warm-salmon and earthy-green tones. Tapestries from 125 year-old northern French textile company Art de Lys hang like lush gardens over the beds, and leopard print side chairs and crystal lighting fixtures, in sweeping lily and daisy shapes, complete the rooms.
There’s a lot going on even when it comes to the gastronomy. In perhaps the first instance of a Parisian luxury hotel invoking Yiddish, the hotel’s restaurant Boubalé (which translates to “My Little Darling”) will pay direct tribute to the neighborhood’s Jewish roots. Israeli chef Assaf Granit is presenting a modern spin on Ashkenazi food traditions. It’s east meets west meets Middle East.
Room start at roughly $730.
Garden Party
Even the ceilings in the barroom at La Fantaisie make a statement.Courtesy of La Fantaisie
If Paris had a contest for lushest hotel design, La Fantaisie would win.
Opening June 1, it will bring floral flamboyance and eco-savvy to the Faubourg-Montmartre neighborhood. Designed by Brudnizki for the family-owned Leitmotiv hotel group, the property centers around a lush “secret” courtyard garden, a hideaway that is canopied, parasoled, and deeply cosseted.
Wallpaper is back.Courtesy of La Fantaisie
That outdoor eden inspired the design choices made in the 63 rooms and 10 suites, which feature a green, yellow, and coral palette. Handmade ceramic table lamps festooned with three-dimensional frogs and lizards? Yes, La Fantaisie’s rooms have those, too.
Meanwhile, artist Adam Ellis’s wallpaper, overrun with voluptuous blooms, covers the walls and ceiling at the terrace bar.
Squiggle on the tables power clash with the textured walls.Courtesy of La Fantaisie
Consistent with their love of all things botanical, the hotel owners are also stressing ecological choices.
The spa, decorated with floral mosaics, uses Holidermie vegan products. Michelin three-starred chef Dominique Crenn’s Golden Poppy restaurant will be “zero waste,” and its ceiling is reminiscent of an antique greenhouse.
All that pattern adds up to make a splash.Courtesy of La Fantaisie
Crenn—who was, until recently, based in San Francisco and is the only female chef to have won three Michelin stars in the US—will be serving dishes such as turbot ceviche with spiced parsnip milk and leche de tigre. Something wild this way comes.
Room start at roughly $592.
King Leer
Airelles Chateau de Versailles isn’t afraid to go old-school with its rooms.Courtesy of Airelles Chateau de Versailles
The 17th-century Chateau de Versailles is the ne plus ultra of maximalism, and since opening its 14-room and suite hotel there in June 2021, Airelles Château de Versailles, Le Grand Contrôle has fully embraced that lavish legacy.
Pack your best Baroque bathers and your most imperious energy, because this summer, the hotel’s offering an exclusive package to the Grand Masked Ball on June 17.
Public spaces are refined and eclectic.Courtesy of Airelles Chateau de Versailles
For about $5,400, you’ll get a two-night stay, a personal butler, a “Marie Antoinette style” tea experience, a dinner for two at the on-site Alain Ducasse restaurant and VIP seating at the ball, with a reserved table, buffet, and unlimited Champagne. Be ready to dance in the Orangerie until sunrise.
Christopher Tollemer is behind the design.Courtesy of Airelles Chateau de Versailles
More cerebral travelers might prefer an exclusive visit to the Palace of Versailles’s central library, where the Treaty of Paris 1783—which officially ended the American Revolutionary War and confirmed America’s independence—was negotiated.
The hotel is filled with period furniture.Courtesy of Airelles Chateau de Versailles
All guests can swan around the rooms designed by Christopher Tollemer, which feature butterfly- and flower-embellished custom Maison Pierre Frey wall hangings and original period furniture, much of it sourced with a specialist in French heritage and art. All rooms also include private access to Versailles’s 2,000-acre gardens and palace halls, spa, Ducasse restaurant and 50-foot indoor pool.
Rooms start at roughly $2,100, plus a 14 percent destination fee.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Coverpage’s editorial stance
