Hotel Insider: Old School Meets New School at the Hilton Opera in Paris
You make a reservation, but you don’t know what a hotel is really like until you stay there. There are hundreds of thousands of hotels worldwide, and with new ones opening every day, it’s impossible to know what you’re going to get. Yahoo Travel takes the guessing out of your reservation by going inside some of the world’s most popular hotels.
The Hilton Paris Opera (Photo: The Hilton Paris Opera)
The Hotel: Hilton Paris Opera
Location: 108 rue Saint Lazare, Paris, 75008
Background: For the past 43 years, this five-story hotel right next to Paris’s second largest railway station, Gare Saint-Lazare, was the Concorde. Originally, though, it debuted in 1889 as Hotel Terminus to welcome those coming to the Exposition Universelle, a world’s fair. Now, after $50 million worth of renovation and refurbishment, it joins more than 4,200 Hilton hotels worldwide.
First impressions: I wasn’t really hit with the beauty and enormity of the hotel until I walked beyond the two small check-in counters into Le Grand Salon. It’s here that I saw the stunning restoration firsthand, with the soaring 46-foot-high ceilings, sparkling chandeliers, and hand-painted frescoes conjuring the lavish belle époque period. That’s not to say it doesn’t feel fresh and contemporary — quite the contrary, in fact. Thanks to bright yellow color-blocked canvases by French painter Sandrine Merrien and très chic grand velvet armchairs with fresh white orchids placed throughout, they’ve managed to balance the old with the new quite nicely. In short, you feel like you’re in Paris — today’s Paris.
What I loved: The heated floors in the bathroom! Oh gosh, I could stand there barefoot all day. My teeth had never been brushed so long.
Related: The Insider: The Scoop on a Legendary Vienna Hotel
The Grand Salon (Photo: Hilton Paris Opera)
What bummed me out: Being woken — twice — by a jackhammer and drill overhead at around 8:10 in the morning. To be fair, the hotel had just technically “reopened” a few weeks prior, but my gosh, I can’t imagine what it was like for those who stayed while the rest of the renovation took place. (The hotel remained the Concorde throughout construction, which began in the spring of 2014.) I’m not a late sleeper anyway, but with a king-size bed and lush bedding, I very easily could’ve been.
Who stays here: From what I could tell, mostly business travelers, which makes sense seeing as it’s so close to the station. But it’s also just a few blocks from Le Printemps and Galeries Lafayette grand magasins (department stores), which is why my mother and I checked in for two nights while she was visiting me in Paris. (I love a good Mom cuddle, but seven nights in a full-size bed in my small Montmartre studio may have put me over the edge — literally.) It being the end of soldes, the twice-yearly discount period when anything and everything is marked down, we wanted to be closer to the deals. Had we decided to hop over to Brittany for two days, though, this also would’ve been a great jumping-off point, as Gare Lazare is the departure destination for all trains traveling north and west.
A deluxe room (Photo: Hilton Paris Opera)
Where you sleep: Surprisingly, the rooms are not typical cookie-cutter hotel chain chambers. You could tell they wanted to tap into the unique, boutique-y vibe that so many travelers crave nowadays, myself included. For instance, the walls behind the bed feature mod-murals of a Paris cityscape; the color tones are bright, yet subtle, with lots of gray accented by yellow; and the furniture is adorned with the ubiquitously cool decor du jour: brass grommets. Of course, I’m sure nearly all of the 268 rooms follow a similar theme and pattern, but at least it’s inspired and fresh.
Where you eat: There are several different venue choices for where to get your grub on in this hotel, though I didn’t necessarily think the food was worth staying put. That said, sometimes you have a night when your feet ache and you can’t move another bone from all that shopping and walking, so you decide to sit in the calming and glorious Grand Salon for a small bowl of risotto and “meatball sliders” (which are really just mini hamburgers). The latter could’ve also been ordered at Le Petit Bar, the smaller space on the street side that’s open from 4:30 p.m. until 10 p.m., and therefore offers a classy after-work, apéro vibe. (Le Grand Salon, however, is an all-day affair. Start there in the morning for a petit café and a croissant, and end it with those sliders, er, hamburgers.) There’s also a restaurant called Terminus Café, and a breakfast area on the first floor, which offers a full American petit dejeuner, complete with yogurt parfait, eggs, bacon, and assorted pastries.
Related: The Insider: The Dreamiest Bed and Breakfast in Ireland
Le Petit Bar (Photo: Hilton Paris Opera)
Stuff you want: The scent-sational Peter Thomas Roth toiletries in the bathroom and the clever guest collection cans from the minibar. There are three to choose from: Mobile Charger & Travel Adapter, which comes with the aforementioned for a number of devices; Jetlag, which features a wake-up cream, a relaxing cream, and an eye mask; and Sleep Well, which includes a pillow spray, a “relax pulse point cream,” face mask, earplugs, and a camomile tea bag. Each can is €30 (about $32 USD).
What no one tells you: While it may look like the ceiling of Le Grand Salon is a frosted glass window that lets natural light into the room, it’s actually lit with LED bulbs that remarkably give the appearance of the outside coming in. Those shadows cast on the wall behind the bar just before sundown? They’re not real either. Could’ve fooled me — and I’m a true lover of this ville lumière.
How much it costs: Rates start at $250 a night.
WATCH: Brittany’s Travel Hacks — Hotel Edition
Let Yahoo Travel inspire you every day. Hang out with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Watch Yahoo Travel’s new original series, A Broad Abroad.
