Grand Powers

In the summer of 1947, Henri Betti stopped outside a lingerie shop in Nice and came away with the first nine notes of a song. In Paris, he met the lyricist André Hornez at the Hôtel Powers on rue François-Ier. They needed a title, three syllables to fit the opening notes. Hornez returned the next day with ten suggestions; the last was C'est si bon. There was a snag. Charles Trenet had already written a song called C'est bon. Betti was unmoved. That little si, he insisted, made all the difference. He was right. The song travelled around the world.

It is a useful thought in the Golden Triangle, where almost everything comes with a claim to greatness. The palaces nearby have marble staircases, famous names over their restaurants and lobbies made for grand arrivals. Grand Powers, on the corner of rue Pierre-Charron, has something lighter in mind. It is the three-minute song in a street full of opera, and all the more appealing for not trying to compete.

The cream-coloured building has been a hotel since 1920. Its bay windows and fine stone façade belong comfortably among the expensive shops and handsome apartment buildings of the quarter, but inside there is a lovely absence of ceremony. When the house was renovated, the old mouldings and marble fireplaces stayed, while the fifty rooms acquired velvet, silk, aged brass and a different colour for each floor. Powder pink gives way to celadon green, then blue. The rooms feel carefully furnished rather than decorated to impress, with generous beds, white marble bathrooms and the sort of comfort that doesn't require an explanation.

The most unexpected detail is a yoga mat in every room. In a neighbourhood where so much effort goes into looking wonderful, Grand Powers quietly suggests that you stretch. Café 52 takes a similarly cheerful approach to good behaviour, with seasonal produce, colourful vegetable dishes and cocktails that are a little less devoted to sugar. But there is champagne too, and a terrace on rue François-Ier where you can watch the well-dressed world go by without participating quite so enthusiastically. The café stays open until midnight, though the full menu finishes earlier. It is a pleasant place for breakfast, a late lunch or a drink before bed, without the solemnity of destination dining.

Downstairs, Spa Thala is the house's one extravagance: an intimate collection of marble rooms with a hot tub, hammam and sauna. There is no swimming pool, and the spa is too small to occupy an entire afternoon. That is rather the point. An hour here after a day on avenue Montaigne feels like a luxury borrowed from a much bigger hotel.

Upstairs, the rooms deserve a little discrimination. The smallest start at twenty square metres, perfectly pleasant for a weekend, less generous when two people unpack for a week. Some have slender Parisian balconies, but the Eiffel Tower is not a view to leave to chance. Book a Junior Suite with Balcony Eiffel Tower View if you want to sit outside and see it, or the sixty-square-metre Eiffel Tower Suite at the top for the fullest version of the experience. Not every room is blessed with that outlook, and paying for a larger category without checking the view may miss the pleasure you came for.

Grand Powers is expensive, and its comforts are deliberately limited in scale. There is one café, a small spa and none of the public spectacle that its grander neighbours provide. The Golden Triangle is also better at shopping than at making you feel part of a Parisian village. But there is a certain confidence in a hotel that knows how much is enough. You could spend considerably more on a grander entrance a few streets away. You might not enjoy yourself any more.