1st Arrondissement

Saturday nights are for Hôtel Costes, when as many tables as possible are packed into the courtyard and it feels like every young hedonist in Paris is drinking spicy margaritas.

A few goop editors recently stayed at Hotel Nolinski, and we can’t believe this total gem stayed off our radar for so long. Just around the corner from the Jardin des Tuileries, the doorway is so inconspicuous you could sail down Avenue de l’Opera on your scooter (we did) a hundred times and miss it. That’s Nolinski’s charm.

French-Asian cuisine is de rigueur in Paris right now, and Yam’Tcha easily knocks out half the competition. “Yam’Tcha” is Mandarin for “drink tea,” and this is a restaurant with an in-house Chinese tea sommelier—a pot of after-dinner silver needle is mandatory—and a full tea pairing with your meal is suggested (and yes, the wine is also abundant).

Claus is one of those spots where you'll want to have your way with every dish on the menu (all-breakfast, all the time). There are granolas and toasts and eggs in every conceivable incarnation, and good god, so much pastry. Get a small window table upstairs, grab a newspaper, and take your time. There’s also granola: Claus will have you hooked one crunchy, subtly sweet, almost smoky bite in. And the tiny grocery store across the street that sells the stuff by the bag is the final piece of the master plan. There's also tea, coffee, and a dozen or so flavors of house-made jam. You'll buy all the jars you can carry with the best intentions of handing them out to friends back home. But even the best intentions…

There's a certain sexiness to hotel restaurants, and Michelin-starred Pur at the Park Hyatt oozes it. Chef Jean-François Rouquette has put together a menu of flawless interpretations of classic French dishes. Gently roasted scallops, Plouguerneau abalones, and truly excellent steak are all served in the refined, many-columned dining room. For a blow-out, completely seasonal meal in Paris, Pur delivers—drink your wine at the table and save a post-dinner digestif for the elegant Park Hyatt bar.

Taking up a large swath of the iconic Rue de Rivoli and facing the Tuileries garden, Hotel Le Meurice is a lot like the palace at Versailles, minus the train ride. Francophiles, understandably, will love it. The hotel is so grand and so ornate, each room brimming with Louis XVI furnishings—the holy grail of silks, gold, brocade, and crystal. While the suites are otherworldly, the classic rooms really hold their own, outfitted with French linen sheets, fresh flowers, floor-to-ceiling marble bathrooms, and beautiful artwork. If you can tear yourself away from those bathrooms, the Valmont spa (no one does toning treatments quite like the French), Philippe Starck–designed restaurant Le Dalí, and Alain Ducasse's Michelin-starred restaurant, Le Meurice Alain Ducasse—helmed by chef Jocelyn Herland, are all at your disposal. Oh, and you know those stunning, even-more-beautiful-than-real-life fruit-shaped desserts you've been seeing all over your Instagram feed? They are the creation of pastry chef Cédric Grolet, who's set up his patisserie right here in the hotel.

After four years of renovations—the first closure in the hotel’s history—the Ritz Paris’s charming, traditional style is firmly intact but decidedly spruced up. The spa is as stunning as ever, aglow with gilded flourishes and newly embellished with art from the room Coco Chanel inhabited for over thirty years. The treatments are at least as luxurious: Aestheticians use sound and light to ease you into total relaxation, then they go to work. The fascia massage, in which the membranes coating the muscles of the face are manipulated to ease tension, is amazing, and getting slathered in a collagen-infused formula leaves you smoothed and soothed. When it’s all over, delay the crushing return to reality by retreating to the neoclassical swimming pool with one of the spa’s fantastic beauty-elixir cocktails.

Through a beautiful garden courtyard near the Paris Vendôme, every treatment at the glamorously hushed Darphin Vendôme Institute starts with a soothing pressure-point massage. The facials are off-the-charts incredible, and we like to hang out beforehand in the super soothing relaxation room. We love the Harmonizing Touch treatment, which blends soothing botanicals to lift and firm skin and the La Parisienne, an hour and a half that includes a soothing facial and a rejuvenating massage.

Loulou is what you get when you cross classic Italian food with French sensibility and arguably the most famous location in the world. Chef Diego Compagno to the first, chef Benoit Dargère to the second, and as for that location: "Loulou" is a cheeky play on "Louvre." The menu changes often but highlights include simple and perfect dishes like, raw purple artichokes with parmesan and olive oil or beef tagliata with black pepper infusion, arugula, and parmesan. Every course is simple and restrained and somehow light-but in a setting so regal, so historic, and so likely to make you feel like you deserve a noble rank, you'll hardly care.

Maisie Café brings a taste of LA juice culture to Paris. The brainchild of former luxury exec turned wellness enthusiast Isabella Capece, Maisie Café has an all-vegan, organic menu that reflects the more health-conscious direction many new Parisian spots are heading in. Breakfast is light, with acai bowls, matcha granola, juices, and shakes, while lunch is pure West Coast in the sense that most of the dishes are bowl-based: brown rice or soba noodles topped with the freshest veggies, nuts, and seeds. The fashion pack who hit Paris for the shows are big fans of Maisie's cures—hot and cold soups, elixirs, and broths for every ailment, all available for delivery. If you do choose to sit in, the interior feels like a balmy escape to Miami with tropical-print walls and pastel seating.