If you’ve ever wondered why the centre of Paris looks like it does – those picture-perfect grand avenues flanked by beautiful, limestone-faced blocks – then look no further than Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. This Napoleonic bureaucrat reconstructed basically the whole city in the nineteenth century. He’s commemorated all over the city today, including in the name of Boulevard Haussmann. And it’s an appropriate address for the M Social Hotel Paris Opera, because this place really feels like it’s at the centre of things.
You’re a quarter-hour’s stroll from Pigalle in one direction and the Louvre in the other; a half-hour from the Marais, the Left Bank, the Champs-Élysées or Gare du Nord. And you’re right in the middle of Paris’s most historic shopping area: the massive (and marvellous) Galeries Lafayette department store is just down the street. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better location for a weekend of Parisian retail therapy or ticking off the sights.
Of course, a good hotel needs more than a great address, and M Social hits all the right buttons. First opened in 1927 as the Hotel Commodore, it still has lovely art deco bones: the vintage lifts with their wood panels and brass accents, the endless marble staircase, the glass dome in the lobby. A revamp in 2021 by Singaporean hotel giant Millennium gave the hundred-plus rooms a swish, modern revamp, with some bold colour choices – millennial mauve walls and squishy velvet furniture in green, orange and aquamarine – serving as an antidote to the beige rooms of many a chain hotel.
I got a tidy night’s sleep in the vast green bed and loved the boulevard views from the big windows (fully openable for Parisian ambiance by day, effectively soundproofed at night), and the noon checkout (which should be the default everywhere, frankly).
I wasn’t such a big fan of the disposable coffee cups on the tea-and-coffee station, or the slightly confused art collection (neo-baroque meets art deco meets pop-art prints). But I’d happily recommend breakfast in the Papillons & Co restaurant downstairs: a breakfast buffet solid enough to fuel up for a full day’s gallivanting down those Haussmannian boulevards.
Neighbourhood
You’re on the border of the 2nd and 9th arrondissements. The immediate vicinity is heavy on shops, hotels and offices, with the Palais Garnier opera house forming a focal point a few minutes away, and major sights like the Palais-Royal and Louvre less than 20 minutes to the south. There are no fewer than four metro stations nearby, to whisk you off to attractions further afield.
Nearby
Galeries Lafayette: for shopping till you drop… and then getting back up to check out the incredible views from the roof.
Miam Miam Cool: for stuffing your face with Sichuanese noodles and dumplings until your eyes water.
Musée Gustave Moreau: for taking a trip back to nineteenth-century Paris, on a visit to the fin-de-siècle home and vast atelier of an underrated French painter.
Time Out tip
Nab a breakfast table in the Papillons & Co conservatory, which turns into a terrace on warm days, and people-watch over croissants and coffee.
