Kimpton St Honoré Paris

At five in the afternoon, the Kimpton St Honoré offers its guests a drink. It is a small but appealing reversal for a building that was designed to make people spend money. This was once La Samaritaine de Luxe, the grander relation of the famous department store beside the Seine. A century ago, you came here to buy beautiful things. Now you can take a glass, find a comfortable chair and put your wallet away for an hour.

The original Samaritaine began in 1870, when Ernest Cognacq and Marie-Louise Jaÿ opened a shop near the Pont-Neuf. Their success eventually required a more exclusive outpost for Paris's wealthier customers. The boulevard des Capucines branch, designed by Frantz Jourdain with Georges Bourneuf, opened in 1917 with curling ironwork, coloured decoration and an extraordinary staircase incorporating its lifts. Cognacq also displayed his collection of eighteenth-century art here before it moved into a museum. Then came a reversal: the old riverside department store reopened in 2021 with the exceptionally expensive Cheval Blanc upstairs, while this former temple of luxury became a hotel that makes a point of being informal.

Look for the staircase on arrival. Its ironwork and the old lift are protected, and the building retains the slightly extravagant air of a place where shopping was once an occasion. Designer Charles Zana has given the 149 bedrooms a softer, more residential version of Art Deco, with parquet, mouldings, gentle colours and handsome fabrics. It is polished without being stiff. The hotel has rather more life downstairs than the decoration alone would suggest.

A little care with the room categories is worthwhile. The City Single measures twenty-one or twenty-two square metres and, despite its name, has a queen bed. An Essential runs from twenty-two to twenty-eight; a Premium from twenty-eight to thirty-five and suits a longer stay. Balconies exist in both categories, but are not automatic, so confirm one before booking. Suites start at thirty-eight square metres; the Suite Collection, at forty-nine to fifty-nine, is where you begin to have a proper apartment's breathing room. Ask about the outlook too. The boulevard is lively, and not every window comes with the same degree of quiet.

Montecito, beneath a glass roof and beside a planted courtyard, is where the hotel most cheerfully forgets it is in Paris. Its cooking looks to California: vegetables, bright flavours, avocado and the occasional exuberant brunch, served in a room that invites you to linger. The restaurant is busy with people who are not sleeping upstairs, which makes it feel less like an obligatory hotel dining room. On the first Sunday of the month there is even a Doggy Brunch, introduced in 2026, complete with a separate menu for four-legged guests. Absurd, perhaps, but difficult to dislike.

The hotel's own version of generosity extends beyond that early-evening drink. Dogs are welcome, bicycles can be borrowed, and beneath the bustle is an indoor pool of roughly eleven metres, with a sauna, steam room and treatments by CODAGE. It is a lovely place to recover from a day's walking, though not somewhere to train for a swimming race. On the roof, Sequoia offers a thrilling view over the Opéra and the rooftops towards the Eiffel Tower. Go when the weather and opening arrangements allow; a rooftop should be a treat, not the sole reason for choosing a hotel in October.

There are compromises. Boulevard des Capucines has traffic and theatre crowds, and a fashionable restaurant does not turn the surrounding streets into a quiet neighbourhood. Kimpton's friendliness is also part of a well-rehearsed international formula, however sincerely it may be delivered. But the location is excellent for the Opéra, the department stores and the covered passages, and the atmosphere is much less ceremonious than the building's old purpose would suggest. La Samaritaine de Luxe was built for people who wanted to buy the good life. It is rather nice that, for a night or two, you can simply stay in it.