Hôtel de Sers

The Marquis de Sers, it seems, was a country gentleman in need of a Parisian second home — he commissioned this classic four-story mansion just off the Champs Elysées in 1880, and in the intervening hundred-plus years it went on to become first a rather conventional hotel (the Queen Elizabeth) and now, a refreshingly unconventional one: the Hôtel de Sers.

Unconventional, not avant-garde; Paris is a city of deeply traditional hotels, a situation which ensures that its most stylish hotels are still eminently livable. L’Hôtel de Sers is, by international standards, an example of entirely sensible contemporary design, less starkly modernist than simply clean-lined, uncluttered and unpretentious. Guest rooms feature furniture by Poltrona Frau and fabrics by Missoni, and high-tech flourishes like Bang & Olufsen flat-screen televisions.

To say it’s not the typical Parisian luxury hotel is not to take anything away from the experience — try spending a night in one of the Panoramic Suites, with their outdoor terraces and jaw-dropping city views (including an almost gratuitous look at the Eiffel Tower), and ask yourself what more you could want. Service is tops, there’s a fitness room and spa downstairs, and the hotel’s restaurant and bar are joined by innumerable others in the immediate area — which, did we mention, is steps from the Champs Elysées?