Hôtel San Régis

Carmel Snow, the formidable editor of Harper’s Bazaar, used to conduct meetings from her bed at the San Régis. At least, that is how the family who run the hotel remember it. Snow was a regular when this discreet house, a few steps from Dior, was a favourite address of the Paris fashion world. There is something delicious about the image: people arriving with important business, only to be received by someone who saw no reason to get up. Today's hotels invent elaborate personalities for their imaginary guests. The San Régis had the real thing.

The building began as a private house in 1857. In 1923 Simon André Terrail, who also owned La Tour d’Argent, turned it into a hotel, and later brought over antique furniture from the George V when that hotel changed hands. Elie Georges bought the San Régis in 1984 and restored it with his brothers; his daughters Sarah and Zeina now carry on the family business. Its forty-two rooms have not been left untouched through all these years. They have been renovated, rearranged and dressed again. But nobody has decided that the whole house needs a new personality every five years.

Inside, the pleasure is in noticing that things do not quite match. Stained glass catches the light on the staircase; antique chests, silk wall coverings and gilded frames share the rooms without pretending to be part of a matching set. Pierre-Yves Rochon helped shape the interiors, and the family's collection of furniture and art gives the rooms their individuality. It can feel gloriously old-fashioned, even a little fussy. But it does not resemble a design concept rolled out identically across forty-two doors.

That variety makes the room choice unusually important. A Classic is only twenty square metres, tucked away at the rear and reached by stairs. Fine for a short visit, perhaps, but a tight fit for two people staying a week. A thirty-two-square-metre Deluxe gives you more room to live in; the thirty-eight-square-metre Prestige rooms look onto the quiet inner courtyard, and some have fireplaces. The Terrace Junior Suites, higher up, are thirty-five to forty-five square metres and open onto private terraces with the Eiffel Tower above the rooftops. They cost considerably more, of course. Here you are not simply buying a larger version of the same bedroom; you are choosing which Paris you want to wake up to.

Downstairs, Les Confidences has a glass roof and the air of a rather well-tended winter garden. Chef Erwan Ledru's seasonal cooking is modern enough to keep all those antiques from becoming a complete period drama. Afternoon tea is more interesting still: Jessica Prealpato, known for making pastries from unexpected grains, fruit and herbs, brings a very contemporary imagination to an old-fashioned ritual. It is served on selected afternoons, so check the schedule rather than assuming you can turn up whenever the mood strikes. A long lunch here is rather more the point than a fashionable late-night crowd.

Outside, you are in the Golden Triangle, with avenue Montaigne's fashion houses around the corner and the Seine and Grand Palais close enough for a walk. The location is wonderfully convenient if your Paris involves galleries, shopping and long lunches. It is less compelling if you want the bars, bookshops and street life of a more residential neighbourhood. And the hotel does not offer a pool, spa or gym to fill the hours between excursions. For the price of a small Classic room, that absence may be hard to overlook.

But the San Régis is good at something that cannot be added during a refurbishment. It understands the appeal of a hotel small enough to have a past, and comfortable enough not to make a performance of it. In the part of Paris most devoted to next season's new look, that feels like a rather pleasant luxury.