Hôtel Les Dames du Panthéon

What’s happened to the French?

Where have all the surly waiters gone?

Where’s the boulangerie madame who stares blankly through you as you plead for ‘une baguette s’il vous plaît’ as if she’d never heard of a long stick of crunchy bread? And what about the cab driver who takes you from Gare du Nord to Notre-Dame via Marseille?

We just spent a delightful few days in the City of Light only to discover that Paris has become the ‘friendly’ capital of Europe. Everywhere you go people are happy. They smile and want to help you. And even as you murder their language in a pathetic attempt to ask directions, they reward you with warmth and friendliness for at least attempting a few words of le française. I almost missed the snort and the shrug.

Nowhere is this bonhomie more present than at the wonderful little hotel we stayed at in the 6th arrondissement, right smack bang on the edge of the Place du Panthéon. Ah, oui, the excellent Hôtel Les Dames du Panthéon. You discover the six-storey stone cornerblock, almost by mistake. We dragged our bags from the local Métro station alongside the Luxembourg Garden, through the cobbled streets and into the Place du Panthéon. So spectacular is the view as you enter the large square and see the neoclassical church for the first time, that we walked right past the hotel, it’s closest neighbour. Doubling back, you rediscover the incredible vista reflected in this boutique hotel’s large glass frontage, a view only bettered by the panoramic spectacle that greets you from any one of the 30 or so rooms that are situated at the front of the building.

These days, ‘boutique’ has come to mean all sorts of things, but often with hotels, boutique is the new minuscule: tiny, cramped, and more like a cupboard. A place you couldn’t even get a cat in let alone give it a good swing. Especially in Paris. But not so at the Hôtel Les Dames du Panthéon, where boutique means what it should: cosy, stylish, well designed and intimate. Where the hotel staff is neither brusque nor ridiculously subservient, but rather, warm, friendly, and welcoming. They’re people who appear to take great pride in the hotel that they run which is reflected in the casual atmosphere that they create and the way they interact with their guests.

We’d booked a Panoramic Deluxe room for three nights and couldn’t have been happier. Perched at the top of the building on the sixth floor with a couple of gargoyles next door for company, panoramic it most certainly was. The height gave us a prime perch to appreciate Paris’ mansard rooftops all the way to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, and that unique experience of being able to look down and get a sense of the whole city spread before you. There was a sense of place and direction that makes you desperate to get out and explore it. And that feeling of excitement that lies at the heart of arriving at a great destination.

From the sleek reception and intimate bar on the ground floor an ancient staircase descends to what appears to be a 16^th-century stone dungeon – used for breakfast rather than scenes from the Spanish Inquisition. (A highlight proved to be a freshly cooked omelette which put many a cheese soufflé to shame, plus great coffee, of course, fresh warm baguette with preserves, prosciutto, fresh fruits, and juices. Délicieux.) Large, and recently redecorated, room 62 was on the corner of the building, which gave us large windows on two sides. With sunlight streaming in all day, each lookout totally pulled its weight. It was also spacious enough to easily swing two cats simultaneously either side of the kingsize bed. We’d read a description on the hotel’s website that ‘the Asian-inspired interior design will enchant and calm you’. But this was Paris – we didn’t want calm, we wanted mayhem! 

Clean, fresh, sunny, comfortable. That wonderful Julie Delpy film had it wrong – three days in Paris was never going to be enough. Of course part of a hotel’s appeal is what goes on outside and around it. The Hôtel Les Dames du Panthéon is situated in a great neighbourhood just south of the Seine and the famous Rive Gauche – Left Bank, to us English speakers. Cluttered with a million restaurants and bars, shops and cafés, it’s begging to be explored.

A few years back I’d hear from visitors that it was ‘hard to find a good meal in Paris’. I’m not sure that was ever strictly true, but it certainly isn’t the case now. We had three lunches and three dinners to look forward to. The only hard part was only working out which to miss. Dining wise, the greatest discovery of our trip was Le Comptoir du Relais, a brilliant little restaurant at the end of Carrefour de l’Odeon. A tasty contemporary version of classic French bistro cooking. A big menu full of impossible-to-decide choices, extremely friendly staff and a chef with a cracking sense of humour (in terms of his personality rather than any comedy deliveries of food).

Next door, owned by the same chef, Yves Camdeborde, is L’Avant Comptoir. A thin artery of a bar/restaurant which plays great music and offers an extensive collection of delicious small plates. The menu hangs on cards from the ceiling – it’s a great little place for a glass of wine and a packs-a-punch Basque snack. The patrons are the waiters, everyone just hands the food and booze across.

Our whole hotel-reviewing experience was sensational – in a delicious, refreshing, experience-rich way that only three days in Paris can be – and our little base at the hotel Les Dame du Panthéon was exactly how a Parisian hotel should be.