Paris & Champagne

Four Seasons George V has always been my favourite among the Parisian grandes dames. Others have the history, or the address, or the bar everyone insists you must visit, but the George V has long understood something its rivals often forget: grandeur means very little without service to match. So when news came of its renovation, I booked without hesitation, excited but also slightly apprehensive. Renovations of beloved hotels have a habit of fixing what was never broken.

The George V, however, was only part of the plan. Paris hotel rates have now reached genuinely stratospheric levels, with entry-level rooms at the palace hotels commanding sums that would once have secured a suite. Which raised an obvious question: what does Paris offer the traveller unwilling to spend four figures a night before breakfast? The boutique route seems the natural answer, though anyone who has tried it knows it is not a straightforward one. Paris has boutique hotels beyond counting, and a dispiriting number of them combine small rooms, smaller bathrooms and service that ranges from indifferent to invisible.

So this month, we tested the alternatives, checking in at JK Place, Nolinski and 1, Place Vendôme before leaving the city altogether for the vineyards of Reims and the Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa. Some of what we found surprised us. Some of it confirmed exactly what we feared. The details are in the pages that follow.