Le Grand Mazarin

Le Grand Mazarin fills the corner of Rue de la Verrerie and Rue des Archives in the 4th. It is the first city hotel from Maisons Pariente, the family group behind Le Coucou in Méribel and Lou Pinet in Saint-Tropez. The family took three old buildings across the road from the BHV, one of them once the Villa Mazarin hotel, arranged them around a leafy inner winter garden and opened in the autumn of 2023 with five stars, 61 rooms and suites, and a pool, a rarity in the Marais.

The six room categories differ in space and outlook. The Classic Room is 20 m². The Superior runs 20 to 25 m², the Deluxe 23 to 33 and the Prestige 29 to 31, and the Parisian Junior Suite is 30 to 40 m² with a sitting area, some with a balcony at a supplement. The Mazarin Suite, at 42 to 49 m², has a separate living area and connects to neighbouring rooms to sleep a family of up to ten. Every category faces either the street, for the life of the Marais, or the inner patio and its winter garden, for quiet.

The design is the reason to come. Martin Brudnizki, the Swedish designer behind Annabel's in Berkeley Square, took the literary salons of the Grand Siècle as his brief and dressed the house as if a salonnière still lived in it. Tapestry canopies, loom-woven in the Aubusson style by Art de Lys, hang over the beds; the floors are chevron parquet, the fabrics Pierre Frey, the bronzes Lucien Gau and the rugs Pinton. Art de Lys and Pinton both hold the French state's Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant label for living heritage crafts. Leopard-print armchairs turn up in several categories, and the Deluxe rooms, a cabinet of curiosities, add stripes and flea-market antiques. Downstairs, under a vault Jacques Merle painted with the myth of Narcissus in the spirit of Cocteau, an 8-metre mosaic pool sits beside a jacuzzi and a hammam, open to hotel guests. Boubalé, the restaurant, is a room of painted ceilings and velvet that serves breakfast, then Levantine sharing plates until late.

The trade is space and quiet. A Classic is 20 m², the pool is for a swim and the jacuzzi rather than lengths, and this is a hotel with a nightlife: the bar is open until 2 am every night, DJs play from Thursday to Saturday, and the street side hears the Marais late at weekends. Book it if the room itself is part of the reason for the trip. Take a Prestige Room, ask for the winter-garden side, and spend the evenings in the Marais or in the bar downstairs.