Paris, France

Monsieur George

Price per night from$302.93

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR280.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Monsieur du monde

Setting

The stately 8th

Steps from the Champs Elysées, hotel Monsieur George captures the globetrotting glamour of Paris with interiors that borrow from East and West alike. From the pavement of Rue Washington, the hotel’s Haussmanian exterior gives little away – bar a good dose of 18th-century splendour. But step inside and you’re in a world fashioned by designer Anouska Hempel, who has used marble, mirrors and sumptuous fabrics to create rooms reminiscent of Paris’ finest homes. Orient and Occident overlap in quintessential Parisian style, with the interiors influenced as much by Asian palaces as English gardens. The worldly theme continues into the restaurant, Galanga, where the dishes flaunt the flavours of Japan and Indochina.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A bottle of Moët & Chandon champagne in your room on arrival

Facilities

Photos Monsieur George facilities

Need to know

Rooms

46, including three suites.

Check–Out

Noon. Earliest check-in, 3pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability.

Prices

Double rooms from £263.92 (€308), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €10.73 per person per night on check-out.

More details

Rates don’t include breakfast, but it's available for €34 a person.

Also

Designer Anouska Hempel has founded several hotels (including fellow Smith stay Blakes Hotel in South Kensington, London), designed furniture for the Louis Vuitton flagship (a short stroll from Monsieur George) and created interiors for townhouses, country manors and palaces all over the world.

At the hotel

Free WiFi, laundry. In rooms: flatscreen TV with a Playstation 4, minibar, tea and coffee kit, free bottled water and bespoke Monsieur George bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Book a room overlooking the interior garden and you’ll be enfolded in a forest of greens inside and out. Ascend to the upper floors, on the other hand, and the decor turns as white as the dome of the Sacré-Cœur, visible above the rows of Hausmannian roofs.

Spa

The spa is run by Le Tigre, a Parisian yoga and wellness club with a cult following. There are two treatment rooms, a hammam, a sauna and a studio for private yoga sessions.

Packing tips

A woody, spicy fragrance that’ll make you as chic as the locals – and transport you to the jungles of Indochina.

Also

All of the public areas are accessible for wheelchair users, and two of the Classic Rooms are adapted.

Pet‐friendly

Pets under 5kg can stay for €25 a night. See more pet-friendly hotels in Paris.

Children

All ages are welcome, but the hotel is best suited to teens and adults. Babysitting is available from €35 an hour; 12 hours’ notice is needed when you book.

Food and Drink

Photos Monsieur George food and drink

Top Table

Request a table beneath the foliage-flanked skylight.

Dress Code

You’re in the 8th, so dress to the neufs.

Hotel restaurant

Galanga channels a peaceful garden with its emerald zellige tiles, marble-topped tables and bottle-green velvet banquettes, all of which are bathed in light thanks to vast Crittall windows and an octagonal skylight. Head chef Thomas Danigo has created a menu that weaves its way from East to West, capturing the the relationship between the French capital and Indochina. Try the cod with coconut milk and galanga, or the dry-aged beef served with Asian mushrooms, broccoli and algae teriyaki. For dessert, order the poached pear drizzled with honey and sakura sauce.

Hotel bar

The bar is part of the restaurant, and has a glass cabinet filled with spirits from the four corners of the Earth (the gin selection is particularly impressive). Wine gets its due too, of course – the cellar is 1,000 bottles strong.

Last orders

Breakfast is available from 7am to 10.30am; lunch from noon to 2.30pm; and dinner from 7pm to 10.30pm. The bar staff mix drinks from noon to 1am.

Location

Photos Monsieur George location
Address
Monsieur George
17 Rue Washington
Paris
75008
France

Monsieur George is on the corner of Rue Washington and Rue Chateaubriand, placing it within a minute’s walk of the Champs-Elysées.

Planes

Paris’ Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports are both about an hour’s drive from the hotel. From Charles de Gaulle, transfers for up to three people can be arranged for €160 each way; from Orly, it’s €170 in each direction. You can also book a people-carrier for up to seven people for €205 each way.

Trains

Eurostar services from London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Lausanne all pull it at Gare du Nord, the city’s largest station. From there, hop in a cab or take Métro Line 4 (the magenta one) to George V, a two-minute walk from the hotel.

Automobiles

The wide boulevards of Haussmann’s Paris were designed for strolling, and the Métro has you covered when it’s too far to walk. If you do bring a car, the hotel has valet parking for €38 a night.

Worth getting out of bed for

Don’t skip the chance to try a yoga class or massage at the Le Tigre spa. Otherwise, the principle divertissements are the restaurant and bar, where cocktails worthy of Hemingway are shaken until the early hours.

Snaking its way through centuries of star turns in paintings, novels and poetry, the Seine is the lifeblood of Paris. Few activities speak to the flâneur’s soul like an evening walk along its much mythologised banks, which are studded with all sorts of Parisian icons, from the Notre Dame to world-famous bookshop Shakespeare and Company. On the other hand, you could save your feet by booking dinner aboard one of the luxurious vessels owned by Yacht de Paris, which hosts dinner cruises along the most scenic stretches of the river. Its seven vessels are like nothing on the river: the smaller yachts are reminiscent of 1930s pleasure craft and the larger cruisers look like miniature golden-age ocean liners. Board from either Port de Javel Haut or Port Henri IV. For a little ooh là là, book tickets for a cabaret show at the Lido de Paris, where the dinner shows are accompanied by dancers in dazzling costumes and colourful feathers. On a warm day, spread out on the lawns of the Parc Monceau​, founded in the 18th century by the fabulously wealthy Duke of Chartres. Ringed by decorative railings, the English-style gardens are crossed by paths and studded with follies, including a Corinthian colonnade, a stone pyramid and a bridge modelled after the Rialto in Venice.

Local restaurants

On Rue du Pont aux Chou, Boot Café was a cobbler shop in its former life, which explains the hand-painted ‘Cordonnerie’ sign emblazoned on its shopfront. It’s a pint-sized place with just six seats, but it’s in the Marais, so it’s no bad thing if you have to take your coffee and croissant to go. For lunch or dinner, try Parisian mainstay Le Boccador, which has been in business since 1971. The wood-panelled dining room at number 20 rue du Boccador has the effortless charm of an Italian film star – which is fitting, given the black-and-white portraits of Sophia Loren, Monica Vitti and co on the walls. After 35 years of service, chef Mario Nicolo has passed the reins to young blood: Marco Bucca has brought youthful energy to the kitchen without tampering with the timeless atmosphere. Spread over the ground floor of a former hôtel particulier, Apicius has Hausmannian grandeur galore. Vast windows, marble floors and golden chandeliers set a regal tone, but modern touches like animal-print upholstery save it from feeling stuffy. The food, cocktails and service are fittingly faultless, but the restaurant's real trump card is its garden, among the best alfresco dining spots in the city.

Local bars

For after-hours frolics, try Mantignon, which has a late-night restaurant on the top floor and and a zebra-print bedecked club down below. If you find yourself hankering after a midnight snack, order the signature dish – slices of soft brioche with strawberries, raspberries and maple syrup.

Reviews

Photos Monsieur George reviews
Francisca Kellett

Anonymous review

By Francisca Kellett, Travel writer

Is Paris always a good idea? The jury’s out as we chug through the city’s dreary outskirts, a sheen of grey drizzle coating the Eurostar’s windows.

But Paris doesn’t hide its charms for long, and as we pull up in front of Monsieur George, just off the Champs Élysée, the clouds part and the sun dances on the cobbled streets, the scene switching from dull to heart-searingly romantic.

Ah yes, Paris: City of Light, world capital of romance. The perfect place for a cosy weekend à deux – although, in my case, my cosy weekend à deux happens to be with my 10-year-old daughter. And the hotel, on first impression, isn’t necessarily what you’d choose for a kid-friendly holiday.

Housed in an elegant Haussman building on the corner of Rue Washington, the windows are dark and sultry, the entrance low-key and discreet. But then the huge brass doors swing open and we enter a bijou lobby as warm, welcoming – and beautiful – as a velvet-lined jewellery box.

Designed by Anouska Hempel, texture, here, is key. The floors are glossy with bottle-green tiles, the windows shaded by oversized black-silk fans, the huge wooden table in the lobby covered with fashion books big enough to knock someone out. Everything is tactile, the kind of place where you want to stroke the furniture and run your fingers along the walls.

And it smells good: a green-tea-ish signature scent that reminds me of Marrakech, as do the tiles and giant potted plants, come to think of it. There’s a Morocco-meets-Parisian-bolthole feel to the place that makes it immediately, effortlessly chic.

But it’s approachable too. Grown up, not stuck up. While the 10-year-old wanders about naming all the greens on view (‘dusky emerald’ for the walls, ‘deep teal’ for the floors, ‘smokey jade’ for the tables in the bar, a few steps down from the lobby) I’m meeted and greeted by the delightful staff; the concierge says hello with a little bow and promises my daughter he’ll teach her a word of French a day.

Up we head to our corner room on the fifth floor, with floor-to-ceiling French windows opening onto a long, wraparound balcony and whopping views over Rue Washington (which, incidentally, inspired the name of the hotel). My daughter proceeds to poke about, quickly discovering the minibar, coffee machine and fluffy robes, while I take in the enormous velvet sleigh bed, the grey-velvet curtains, the marble-and-brass bathroom.

The effect is warm, comfortable and light-filled – stylish yet liveable. The sort of place a 10-year-old can happily bounce on the bed, but you can also imagine would do very nicely indeed for a romantic weekend away with the other half.

We sleep like kings, in a bed thoughtfully made up ‘German-style’, which means separate duvets and better sleep. Next morning, I sit out on the balcony sipping my coffee, and watch as Paris does its thing below me. People clip-clop along the pavement on their way to work. Tiny old women walk their even tinier dogs. A van is unloaded with much shouting and arm-waving. The air smells faintly of cars and cigarettes and coffee and tiny dogs. It smells of Paris.

Then it’s time for breakfast, in the small, jewel-like restaurant with its pretty courtyard, for fresh croissants and scrambled eggs and more coffee, before we hit the streets. The wonderful thing about visiting a city you know fairly well with a child who’s never been is that you see it all afresh. We do all the headliners – the Eiffel Tower, Sacré Cœur, the Louvre, the giant Monets at the Musée de l’Orangerie, and she’s right: it is all incredible, it is the most beautiful city in the world, we should stop and eat more sorbet-hued macarons.

We eat steak-frites and drink hot chocolate so thick you stand your spoon up in it. We shop and we walk and we criss-cross the city by metro, and by the last evening, exhausted, we decide that the Asian-influenced tasting menu in the hotel restaurant is slightly beyond us, and opt instead for croque monsieur and linguine bolognese in the mirrored bar.

I have a last glass of wine at the little bistro table on the balcony while the 10-year-old goes to sleep inside, and realise, if I lean as far as I can to the right, I can see the tip of the Eiffel Tower, gleaming above the city’s rooftops. Below me, the pavements shine in the evening streetlights and people clip-clop to various nightspots and a tiny old woman walks her tiny dog. And I realise that yes, it’s true, Paris is always a good idea.

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Price per night from $302.93