Hotel L de Lutèce: In Memoriam in Paris
February 27, 2025
My mom was a francophile. I’m not sure why, because her French was not that great and she was more of a worldly American trapped in East Tennessee than anything else. She loved Paris especially. Whenever she visited with dad, she always stayed at Lutéce on Ile St Louis.
I stayed here myself a couple of times years ago, and felt drawn to the island to share a bit of my mother’s ghost with Romey. This is the only way they will meet.
The hotel has seen an excellent facelift as a result of COVID, and remains a beautiful little quirky gem. Of course, when you learn anything about Paris (and Lutèce) you find out that ile saint louis is all very new and once was the domain of more cows than people—kind of like where we live now only with much less city. Thanks to Victor Hugo, Notre Dame was rescued from decrepitude and became, once again, the heart of the world.
Speaking of which, here we are standing together on the dot that was once the center of planet earth from which every other place was measured. Our friends Yo and Caroline trained down from Leuven to join us for the weekend—time we will always treasure.
We dropped our bags on a rainy morning (having come down from Hotel de Nell) and headed back up for lunch at Habile. Not to state the obvious, but the French are excellent cooks. Food plays a central role in human existence, and the French have known this for centuries. This is something my mother knew to her core as well.
Habile is superb and fun and neon colored and eclectic. It is also situated in the heart of a set of high-end vintage clothing stores. A coat that immediately caugfht Romey’s eye in the window was a Hermes for a mere 2500 euros. We had fun perusing the stores.
This is the “arc of participation prize.”
Eventually we ran out of steam and stopped for a drink in a random street cafe.
Around sunset we made it down to the seine.
We parted ways for the evening over a glass of champagne in the lobby and headed up to room 61.
61 is a very cool room with an excellent bathroom.
And then it was off to Pur for a delicious old school dinner.
Bright and early the next morning we walked together to the Musée d’Orsay.
View from 61.
After a very brief rest came an excellent private tour of the newly-renovated Notre Dame.
Then it was off for some shopping at Galleries Lafayette. Just go. Nothing was purchased.
We returned to Ile Saint Louis in the very nick of time for a delightful oyster fest at
Poget & De Witte, featuring two bottles of wine and five renditions of the happy birthday song: english, chinese, dutch, german, french and “pissed off drunk guy.”
Romey and Caroline were busy conjuring up words for the various translations.
After dinner we had more mandatory pommes frites at Le Saint-Regis which is about as touristy as they come. Then we packed up and readied ourselves for the trip home.
A warning: we were shanghaied by Dior in the airport somehow on our way out of town the next morning. LOL. A cherished keepsake is now in the inventory.
We had an excellent adventure filled with lots of walking, lots of talking, and lots of love.
Five showerheads and fond memories for Lutèce.
Hotel Original Loves Itself Madly in Paris
March 24, 2013
Arriving from London on the Chunnel Eurostar is interesting. I’ve done the channel, but not the chunnel. The chunnel needs net. But it’s fast.
The Hotel Original is in Marais very close to the Bastille metro. Incredibly easy to get to from almost anywhere in Paris (including Gare du Nord where the London train “lands”). That’s good. But it’s on the very busy boulevard Beaumarchais in 11. Get a room in the back if you can.
The design here is cheeky and stylish and about as in your face as can be. But it’s a great space even if it does love itself madly as it looks at itself in the mirror. Perhaps a better name might have been Hotel Narcissus, eh? The joker could play the role of Demeter.
Who’s purple? Original (not ordinary).
The staff is very nice. Friendly and willing to sacrifice their cell phone number for Musee D’Orsay tickets. The space is striking inside—well lit and quirky with fiber lights in the form of jellyfish swimming liberally throughout the halls.
Room 205 (the joker) is super. And super tiny. This is Paris, but NY is NY, Boston is Boston, and San Francisco is San Francisco. Meaning, there are bigger rooms to be found in this city in boutique hotels. I just don’t know where they are yet.
Magic entrance.
Just don’t turn on the lights.
The bathroom glass cube shower (!) helps the room seem bigger.
Bathroom lurking in the corner.
Check that out. A glass shower cube.
Store your stuff in the hall though.
No room for your toothbrush here.
Neon threesome?
The joker looms.
Paris has gorgeous boulevards.
Our welcome to Paris was complete with a superb and simple meal at Chez Oscar. Man do the French know how to cook! In the end, our meal at Chez Oscar was the most memorable and fun because the owners (Oscar and Marina) were fantastic. We went back to visit them throughout the visit.
Mixology? Maybe, but not on Dimanche or Lundi. Or maybe not.
In any case, the Hotel Original is a four showerheads location. A very nice little boutique with some minor drawbacks (you can choose either a noisy room or a tiny room, but not a large quiet room from what we can tell).
Gorgeous blue on a Lundi.
Speaking of Lundi, our visit to the Pompidou was superb. Lunch at Les Bonne Soeurs was very nice indeed. Dinner at Minimes was not quite as good as the drinks (they can now make a Liberal) or the atmosphere, but was nothing to complain that loudly about. We had more fun the first night eating further down the food chain.
Martedi included some time at Musee D’Orsay (where advanced tickets were necessary and helped us avoid another very long line). There was also the obligatory retail at LaFayette, a superb bistrot dinner with Stephano at Chez Andre, and a night visit to the Eiffel tower.
I take picture of clock. (Musee D’Orsay)
 The retail big top. |
 Ring one of the retail circus. |
Vive la france.
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