"Walking distance from the Eiffel Tower: 30 minutes The staid 16th arrondissement hasn’t exactly drawn visitors over the years. So it’s a testament to the cool factor of Evok Hotels that it can take a former mail-sorting facility in this bourgeois, residential district and make it le talk of Paris. After a four-year renovation overseen by designer Philippe Starck, the resulting hotel is as much about a lifestyle as a place to crash. For one thing, the buzzing restaurant draws fashionable locals starting at breakfast and continuing until the early hours with its patisserie, plates-to-share, and potent drinks. A terrace bar lures the pretty people. The subterranean fitness club channels a Thirties boxing club and had a waiting list the minute it opened. Even the swimming pool has a killer sound system. The party continues in the rooms, each with its own mini-concept store (the mini-bar is so 2018), stocked with pre-made cocktails by the Avantgarde Spirits Company. The design smacks of Starck’s typical sassy eclecticism: walls covered in rich rosewood and leather, African masks and Masai-style beadwork, and in the bathrooms, there are potted cacti next to sinks hewn from unfinished blocks of marble. Who knew that the 16th of all places would become the city’s next hip address?" - Lauren Burvill
