Felicity Long
Conventional wisdom has it that Paris' Right Bank — the area of the city located north of the Seine — is where visitors will find posh hotels and eateries and grandiose, wide boulevards, while the Left Bank is more bohemian, with smaller, more off-beat properties, hole-in-the-wall restaurants and winding cobblestone streets.
But, as with any great city, Paris resists such broad characterizations.
The lobby bar in the newly opened Hotel Filigrane puts a chic spin on Paris’ second arrondissement. Photo Credit: Felicity Long
Take the new Hotel Filigrane, a four-star, boutique property which opened in January in the Right Bank's second arrondissement, for example.
Not only does the 43-room hotel exude the quirky charm you might expect from a property south of the river, but it also pays homage to a section of the city with plenty of history of its own.
Designed by Anne-Claire Majorel of Studio Majorel and Sonia Lemagnen of Agence Vertical, the property's overall look gives a nod to the Paris Stock Exchange, otherwise known as La Bourse, located down the street in the Brongniart palace, and the Bibliotheque, or library, of France.
The idea behind the hotel's design was to use colors that evoke coins, paper money and handwritten notes — features that hit you the moment you walk into the lobby.
The space features a metallic back wall, blond wood and velvet touches, an ultramodern fireplace, clusters of two- and four-seater bistro tables and banquets and an honor bar, which we gravitated to almost immediately after putting our bags down in our room.
Friendly staff mingled with us while we sipped our aperitifs — we got good at nabbing the corner table closest to the fireplace — and talked to us excitedly about the hotel's location in a neighborhood they clearly saw as under-touristed.
"It used to be a little sketchy," said one genial front-desk manager, who also doubled as a de facto waiter, while tempting us with jars of artisanal nuts to go with our wine. Those sketchy days are gone. Nowadays, the streets are bursting with tempting shops, inviting restaurants on side streets, and most notably, series of covered passageways containing shops full of goodies that I was, unfortunately, unable to resist.
The guestrooms themselves are intimate, and visitors have multiple room categories to choose from, including several with balconies.
The largest rooms are the two junior suites with balconies, which top out at 66 square feet.
The property also features a wellness area featuring a steam room, sauna, whirlpool bath and a relaxation space, and we occasionally shared the elevator with couples in spa robes ascending to their rooms.
The lobby is also where hot and cold breakfast is served buffet-style with staff on hand to assist with the coffee machine and to nudge us toward trying the "financiers" — specialty cakes on the buffet table.
For other meals, we found no shortage of options right in the neighborhood, and unlike in some of the city's other neighborhoods, we got by without making reservations.
The Filigrane is one of 25 Parisian properties in the Hotels en Ville collection, founded in 2014 by Caroline Piel and Pierre Martin-Roux.