Esplanade Saarbrücken

There was a time not so long ago when we wouldn’t have expected a city of Saarbrücken’s size, as appealingly cosmopolitan as it is, to be furnished with a boutique hotel of this caliber. But in the 2020s, you never know where you’re going to find a hotel like Esplanade. It’s a charming 19th-century school building on Max Ophüls Square in the atmospheric Nauwieser district, just to the east of the riverside town center.

And in its current guise it’s been given a thorough renovation in an upscale, design-conscious contemporary style, updating its Gründerzeit exterior with interiors that call on modernist masters from Harry Bertoia to Le Corbusier. Though the 16 rooms stop short of full-on luxury-hotel opulence, they’re provided with luxe comforts like Nespresso machines and rain showers.

In fact, this is not only an attractive and quietly luxurious boutique hotel; it’s also the site of a two-Michelin-starred restaurant, also called Esplanade, under the direction of chef Silio del Fabro. The capital of Germany’s smallest state might not see the volume of traffic that passes through Berlin or Munich, but there’s no reason it can’t welcome visitors in equally high style.