Hôtel Rochechouart

The facade alone earns its place — that particular style of Parisian Art Deco that doesn't announce itself but simply is. Boulevard de Rochechouart has energy at almost any hour: the Pigalle strip to one side, the climb to Montmartre to the other. Inside, Festen — the Paris architectural duo responsible for some of the sharpest hotel renovations of the past decade — have found exactly the right register: warm, considered, slightly theatrical without being a costume. The Belle Époque references are felt rather than stated.

105 rooms and suites, each bearing the Festen mark: Belle Époque references held in check by contemporary restraint, good materials, beds that invite lingering.

105 rooms and suites, each bearing the Festen mark: Belle Époque references held in check by contemporary restraint, good materials, beds that invite lingering. Nothing is loud. The Classic Rooms with a Sacré-Cœur view are worth the upgrade — you'll wake to that white dome framed in your window and wonder why you'd ever stay anywhere else in Paris.

The ground-floor brasserie-bar pulls a crowd that has nothing to do with the hotel — neighbourhood Parisians, people who've just heard about it, the kind of room that has developed its own gravity. Good plates, good energy, runs late. The rooftop is a different thing entirely: 100 square metres on the 9th floor, fig trees and almond trees growing in pots, and a panorama that takes in the Sacré-Cœur, the Eiffel Tower, and La Défense simultaneously. Reserve it.

The hotel's least-obvious feature and possibly its best. Behind a red door, past a neon sign, a bar that opens at 11pm and looks exactly like what a 1920s opium den wanted to be when it grew up. Japanese lanterns, low light, dancing. It is exactly what it claims to be — and it is the reason this hotel sits in a different category from anywhere else on this list.

The 9th arrondissement's southern edge — Pigalle to the west, Montmartre directly above, the covered passages of the 2nd within walking distance. Not the 7th. Not the Marais. Something livelier, more heterogeneous, harder to summarise — the kind of neighbourhood you'd choose even if the hotel were half as good.