HotelChatter

Highlights: The hotel’s “high-ceilinged” Siddharta Café—which served a basket of fresh breakfast pastries including “some of the best crosissants and chocolatines” the writer has tasted outside France, and the underground Buddha-Bar restaurant and lounge, a new hot spot for “politicians, actresses, tycoons and other conspicuous consumers.” In the room: the luxurious bathroom, the “classy yet hedonistic décor,” and the “22-square-foot bed with mountains of pillows and crisp linens” that the reviewer’s infant son gave a thumbs up. As for the location on a narrow cobblestone lane? “You could hardly find a more romantic one.”

Lowlights: Little Jonas couldn’t figure out the “unresponsive controls” for the 40-inch flat screen TV, and neither could his parents. The tiny workout room is “just large enough for you and perhaps two friends.”

Bottom line: “Arguably the most stylish small hotel in town, and very much a destination in its own right,” says the NYT, however this praise is preceded with the qualifier: “For the moment.” Rates start at 228 euros ($333), nonrefundable, when booked and paid 21 days in advance.

[Photo: Evan Rail for The New York Times]