Paris, France

Résidence Nell Paris

Price per night from$221.30

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 (EUR204.55), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Design buff’s base camp

Setting

Refined Rue Richer

Résidence Nell Paris​ has 17 sleek-but-snug apartments styled by Patrick Jouin (a Philippe Starck-trained design don), an impeccable concierge service and a plum location in the arty 9ème arrondissement. Families will feel at home here, thanks to the useful kitchenettes and the sofa beds in (most) rooms.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A half bottle of rosé; GoldSmiths get a half bottle of champagne

Facilities

Photos Résidence Nell Paris facilities

Need to know

Rooms

17 apartments, including two studios.

Check–Out

Noon. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £192.80 (€225), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €8.13 per person per night on check-out.

More details

Some rates include a Continental breakfast, if not it's €17 per person.

Also

Staff could be gunning for a ‘Best PAs in Paris’ award. Want to have your hair cut, your muscles unknotted or your nails decorated? The concierge will sort it. Need a chauffeur-driven Merc or a motorbike taxi (heated of course)? Likewise. Want a session with a sports coach, a secretary’s services for a day, or to be booked into the city’s finest dining rooms? Just ask.

At the hotel

Kitchenettes, CD library, PlayStation, laptop, three iPads, free WiFi throughout. In rooms: sofa beds (except the studios), Nespresso machines, Alessi crockery, flatsceen TV with iPad connector, radio, iPod dock, Charm & More bath products by Jeanne Piaubert, minibar.

Our favourite rooms

The apartments are similar in style (white and minimal) and layout: all have one bedroom and a separate living room with a kitchenette (apart from the Luxe apartment, which has two bedrooms). If you want a Juliet balcony, book an apartment on the fifth floor; those on the second and third floors have soaring ceilings.

Packing tips

Forgotten something? Galeries Lafayette – a seemingly limitless department store – is just around the corner. Alternatively, book a personal shopper through the hotel and have any purchases delivered to your door.

Pet‐friendly

Does your dog want to come to Paris and does it weigh less than 20 kilos? If so, it’s welcome too for €20 a night (let the hotel know in advance). Dog bowls are provided. See more pet-friendly hotels in Paris.

Children

The hotel is well suited to family jaunts and has a lift, so you won’t have to lug luggage up stairs. Cots are €20 a night; babysitting is €30 an hour (after 11pm add €16 for cab fare). Bedlinen, baths and baby toiletries can be provided.

Best for

Sure-footed Smithlings aged five and above – the floors are parquet and can be a bit slippery for doddery toddlers.

Recommended rooms

All the apartments have sofa beds (except for the studios) and space for extra cots (€20 a night) to be added. They’re also pretty low on furnishings, meaning more space and less potential breakage.

Activities

Take little ones to the Centre Pompidou for the Galerie des Enfants, which has interactive exhibitions designed by artists and designers; the Espace 13/16 caters to teenagers (www.centrepompidou.fr). Take the escalator for the view and do a quick whizz around the museum looking for works by Picasso, Matisse and the surrealists. You can get to Disneyland Paris in 45 minutes on the metro (it’s a direct line).

Meals

Breakfast for little Smiths is €7 and includes fresh bread (or a croissant/pain au chocolat) with butter and jam, milk (can be chocolate-flavoured) or a yoghurt and juice, a smoothie or some stewed apple. For other meals, the concierge has the numbers for 15 restaurants that deliver to your door.

Babysitting

Résidence Nell works with an agency which can arrange babysitters for €26 an hour (three-hour minimum), with two days’ notice. After 11pm, an extra €16 cab fare will be charged.

No need to pack

Each child under seven is given the hotel's The Little Prince-themed pack, with soap, shower gel, shampoo, a colouring book and coloured pencils.

Food and Drink

Photos Résidence Nell Paris food and drink

Dress Code

Aim for understated chic, and you’ll fit in magnificently among the locals.

Hotel restaurant

None, but apartments come with kitchenettes, so you can rustle up whatever you fancy. If you’re not in the mood to cook, the staff won’t let you go hungry – they can arrange for 15 different types of cuisine to be delivered to your door (perhaps not all at once). The apartment minibars are stocked with snacks including cookies, crisps and ice-cream. If you want any particular treats left in your room pre-arrival, just let the concierge know.

Hotel bar

 No bar or honesty bar area, but there’s beer and champagne in the minibars. Let the ever-helpful staff know if you’re thirsty for a particular vintage or label.

Room service

There’s no formal room service; just let the concierge know what you’re craving and they’ll source it for you around the clock.

Location

Photos Résidence Nell Paris location
Address
Résidence Nell Paris
60 rue Richer
Paris
75 009
France

Résidence Nell is located on the arty 9ème arrondissement, close to cultural, architectural and historical hotspots, including Opéra Garnier, Galeries Lafayette’s flagship store, the Olympia (Paris’ oldest music hall) and the Fragonard perfume museum.

Planes

Paris Orly is 18km away (a 25-minute drive). Air France’s shuttle service to the city centre by bus runs every 20 minutes. Taxis to the city centre cost around €50. Alternatively, Charles de Gaulle airport is 23km (a 35-minute drive). The hotel doesn’t offer transfers but airport taxis are easy to come by (expect to pay around €50–€70).

Trains

The hotel is a 10-minute drive from Gare du Nord, 1km away. The Eurostar connects Paris to London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Lille and other popular European cities. There’s a taxi rank outside the station, so you won’t be waiting long for a lift. If you’re taking the Métro, Cadet station (on Line 7) and Grands Boulevards (Line 8 and 9) are both just a short walk away (www.parismetro.com).

Automobiles

Driving in Paris is a hair-raising, time-hogging experience; you’re better off using public transport or gadding around on foot. However, if you’re pausing in Paris mid-road-trip or wheels are a non-negotiable, park your car at the public car park two minutes from the hotel. Staff can also book chauffeur-driven cars or motorbike taxis.

Worth getting out of bed for

Opera Garnier is a 10-minute walk from the hotel; the Louvre is 20 minutes and so is Montmartre. Catch a live show at Le Grand Rex, a beautiful cinema, theatre and live music venue. Passage Jouffroy, five minutes away, is one of Paris’ first heated shopping galleries. Admire the glittering arched ceiling, the chi-chi boutiques and the well-dressed shoppers. A la Mère de Famille is the city’s oldest chocolate factory, founded in 1761. Its first boutique is handily positioned opposite Nell Hotel & Suites on Rue du Faubourg Montmartre: just to step inside and inhale the cocoa aromas is a treat; to take home one of the pretty boxes even more so.

Local restaurants

Bouillon Chartier on Rue de Faubourg Montmartre has everything you could possibly hope for in a Parisian bistro: haughty waiters in smart black-and-white uniforms, stalwart French dishes such as garlicky snails, and surprisingly modest prices (mains hover around the €10 mark). La Régalade Conservatoire is the sleek Bruno Doucet eatery at sister stay Hôtel de Nell, a five-minute walk away. Its reasonable prix-fixe menu has traditional French dishes made with market-fresh ingredients. After a day of art, books, music and gift-shopping thrills at the Centre Pompidou, eat at its futuristic lounge bar and restaurant (with spectacular city views) Brasserie Georges.

Local bars

The Pink Bar, a vodka bar tucked away in Brasserie Georges (above), offers imaginative cocktails and one of the best vantage points in Paris.

Reviews

Photos Résidence Nell Paris reviews
Jake Dubbins

Anonymous review

By Jake Dubbins, Marketing man

Sipping our champagne at St Pancras railway station, before boarding the Eurostar train to Paris, you could say that there is a little excitement bubbling for these London parents on their first break à deux for a year. From central London to central Paris in just over two hours, and a very quick taxi later and we’re outside the rather unassuming Résidence Nell Paris. The journey all seems too effortless… Just the start we could hope for on a Mr & Mrs Smith weekend away.

Blink and you might miss the 17 apartments and studios on Rue Richer, just south of Montmartre. We make it inside, and we’re greeted by a bookcase bulging with dusty tomes by French literary heavyweights such as Albert Camus and Victor Hugo. We ask at reception who the lady is in the striking pastoral artwork that takes up one whole wall. ‘Madame Nell,’ comes the response with a chuckle. In Louis Malle’s 1978 film Pretty Baby her namesake runs an elegant brothel, but whoever this one is, her eyes have a knack of following you around the room, just like a certain character in the Louvre. Mrs Smith is convinced that when all is quiet she looks sure to settle down to her copy of Les Misérables… And a witty trompe l'oeil touch comes in the taffeta of Nell's skirt seemingly bursting from the wall to form a real bench seat, so you too can sit with her in that parkland.

Away from reading in her spare time, Madame Nell inhabits a rather wonderful residence. Space is a valuable commodity in Paris, as we all know, but Nell treats guests to a bedroom, bathroom and even an open-plan kitchen, diner, living space. Hotel rooms, however splendid they are, can be places where you only intend to lay your head, but this arrangement genuinely feels like you are in your home from home. Here these Smiths can revel in luxurious lie-ins, without the whimper of a small child broadcasting over an intercom; not to mention laidback breakfasts overlooking the rooftops of the 9ème arrondissement.

Now Paris wouldn’t be Paris without Patrick Jouin – design experts reckon you can’t walk 350 metres of the city without encountering one of the style maven’s works, be it architecture, street furniture or industrial design (he’s also a master of handicraft and scenography). Nell is très Jouin: contemporary, function-led and elegant. The apartments aren’t crammed with furniture, but what’s there is high spec: Alessi, Kartell, and Ligne Roset pieces, some designed by Jouin himself. Apart from a few madcap touches in the reception area – a pistachio-green wall by the entrance, a mounted reindeer bust on a wall, and that clever 18th-century-style painting with bookshelves built into the canvas – the aesthetic is one of white simplicity. The philosophy is similarly fuss-free; don’t expect a flotilla of staff, just a dedicated concierge on hand to book restaurants and shape your holiday how you like.

Arriving on Friday (ahem, and it being my birthday), we toast a well-stocked minibar with a chilled half-bottle of Billecart-Salmon champagne. Allow me then to segue through a romantic dinner at the chichi Pamela Popo in the Marais, to Saturday morning when an old acquaintance who we haven't seen for a while, for good reason, makes an appearance for both of us. Ah yes, a hangover. Nell, however, looks after you in your fragile state. She gives you breakfast, with a selection of pastries, breads and jams. She offers you space and light to collect your splintered thoughts and gives you a warm cuddle in the form of the heaviest and most luxurious robes I think we have ever come across.

Saturday of course involves wandering around the endlessly interesting galleries and boutiques of the Marais before we go on to dinner at Montmartre’s oldest restaurant Le Bon Bock… Solid French cooking without eye-watering bill at the end is just the ticket*. (*And if you’re a fan of the origin of idioms, one theory for the emergence of this expression is that it is a corruption of the French word ‘etiquette’. I digress…) We moot the idea of clubs or late-night bars, but yawning, time spent in our Parisian pied-à-terre is what’s most alluring to these off-duty parents.

Sunday at Nell treats us to another lazy morning and then a wander to the renovated Musée D’Orsay. The converted Beaux-Arts railway station is stuffed with works by Impressionism greats, such as Monet, Degas, Manet and Van Gogh. Parfait. And merci, Nell Hotel & Suites for allowing us to have such a special weekend. With unfussy and friendly service from unfailingly polite staff, Nell takes you into her bosom, rewarding you with a peaceful and spacious apartment with all the touches you might hope for (chocolates on the bed, loo roll origami, fresh orchids) and some you might not… The sheer space of the living area, a fancy espresso machine and even a dual ceramic hob if you feel energetic enough to cook. The trouble is that all these features and facilities mean that it would be ideal to bring our small human to next time, should we struggle for babysitters. Hmm. But maybe we’ll keep this as a little secret between us and Nell.
 

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Price per night from $221.30