The Five Hotel

Class: Comfort

Style: Cutting edge

Rooms: 24

It’s never easy to let go of a comfortable old idea. We’ve gone on and on in these pages over the years about what a conservative lot Paris’s hotels are. The point was beginning to stretch a bit already, but now, on the occasion of the opening of the Five Hotel, it’s time to retire that old line for good. Because if enough new places like the Five open up, we’ll have to start droning on about how surprising, how whimsical, how visually modern the hotels in Paris always are, and couldn’t someone just put in a Louis XV chair or a crystal chandelier or something, to give us a break from all this design?

We’re not quite to that point yet. Which is a good thing, as it just means there’s still good reason to be excited about the Five. It’s still not every day you see a hotel painted in solid vivid colors like this, walls gleaming with the texture of Chinese lacquer, tiny pinhole stars floating up the walls and onto the ceiling. Fixtures and furnishings are simple and contemporary, some rooms featuring platform-style beds suspended from the ceiling — watch those hanging wires. And all of the rooms, though minimal, come with the basics, like satellite LCD televisions and high-speed wireless internet access. Beyond breakfast, you’re on your own, but this being Paris, you know the drill — if you can’t find something to eat around the Latin Quarter then there’s no hope for you.