Hyatt Paris Madeleine

Yes, it’s a member of an American chain, but it’s hard to find a luxury hotel that’s much more Parisian than the Hyatt Paris Madeleine. It helps that it’s in Madeleine, in the historic center of the city and an easy walk to everything from the Louvre to the Paris Opera. You could probably find an old-school local or two who would claim that the 8th is pretty much the center of the universe — home to the Champs Élysées, to the French president, to more Michelin three-star restaurants than all of California, and to some of the best shopping in the city, and thus the world.

The style is at least as much Haussmann as Hyatt. The eighty-six guest rooms are a comfortably modern update on the original mode, the exterior as classic as it gets. Fresh flowers and gleaming surfaces abound, and at the heart of the hotel is an elegant restaurant and champagne bar with a glass roof from the workshops of Gustave Eiffel, whose most famous monument can be seen from some of the rooms. The accommodations are not exactly enormous (short of the Executive category, anyway) and the décor is nothing if not subtle, but if there’s such a thing as opulent minimalism, this may be it. The duvets are feathery, the edges soft, the lighting warm, the bathrooms marble; and the rich curtains are so copious that they spill past the bases of oversized windows into tidy piles of fabric on the floor.

While nearby hotels of a similar scale generally contain little more than a lobby and bedrooms, the Hyatt, perhaps unsurprisingly, comes through with respectable business and spa facilities. In addition to a range of board and meeting rooms, there’s a quiet business center with wood-paneled walls, an oversized desk and a soft leather office chair, plus more services than you’ll likely need (secretarial, interpreting, multimedia). The spa offers a full menu of massage, hair styling and manicure-pedicure options, and no detail is overlooked, right down to the TV screens in the sauna.