Hôtel O

For a clean, simple, reliable experience in a fantastic location in the dead centre of Paris, you could do a lot worse than Hotel O. The high concept design features by hip agency Ora-Ïto are a quirk on top of a solid experience rather than the reason to visit, but the overall experience in pleasing. The 29 rooms are done out in different colours themes (even the stair carpeting switches hue from floor to floor) and the highly integrated design gives each room the feeling of being a cocoon or bunker away from it all.

Sometimes the self-conscious design goes too far – no light switch system should be that complicated – but at least you can have a high quality cocktail in the futuristic ground floor bar to balance it out. Modern, brisk, comfortable and colourful, set on a quiet little cobbled street but with Les Halles almost on its doorstep, Hotel O is a solid discovery.