While thereвЂ™s no restaurant, youвЂ™ll find PГўtisserie Brach on the ground floor вЂ“ a tearoom peacocking feted patissier Yann BrysвЂ™ pastries. In one, a steel spin on the four-poster is immense, swallowing most of the room and shutting out the neighbouring retro furniture with futuristic sliding doors. One top-floor room has a bath with a glass-wall view, but itвЂ™s the first-floor rooms вЂ“ traditionally where Parisian nobility would lay their heads вЂ“ that are the real show-offs, with original wooden beams, terracotta floors covered in baby-blue rugs and clay-coloured, unpainted walls dressed in tapestries and modern art. A fictional family art collection is rolled out across the four floors and all the rooms are different. This swings into the quiet, cobbled courtyard belonging to Cour des Vosges, a 17th-century mansion thatвЂ™s a refuge for the cultured polymath with its evocative interiors, a subterranean Roman bath and views across the square. On the oldest square in Paris with its Louis XIII architecture, blush-pink buildings and primped and preened gardens sits a heavy, nondescript door, wedged between a traditional brasserie and a new-age patisserie. This neednвЂ™t feel sacrilegious: Chouchou isnвЂ™t a place to be sequestered away from the city, but a place to be plugged into its rhythms. Downstairs, the continental breakfasts are unfussily satisfying, though itвЂ™s worth saving room to join the line later at nearby patisserie CГ©dric Grolet, where the croissants are famous. Slightly smaller junior suites are named after classic French songs, such as the pastel-pink La Vie En Rose, with views across copper chimney pots to the Palais Garnier opera house. This is Paris, though, so the 63 reasonably priced bedrooms remain eminently grown-up: in LвЂ™Arrache Coeur (The Heartsnatcher) suite, named after the Boris Vian novel, there are blue-paneled walls, a forest-green sofa against a bookshelf wall (lots of Vian), and jazz LPs for the Grundig vinyl player. But never has an outpost been so squarely aimed at locals as well as visitors. This is the 19th hotel from the Elegancia group, the brand behind smart addresses such as the Left BankвЂ™s floral-chic HГґtel des Grandes Ecoles and the sultry black Hotel Snob in Les Halles. On this visit, the space is buzzing with young Parisians packed onto trestle tables, ordering cheese and charcuterie plates or oysters for a euro a go from mock stalls with striped awnings. At the Opera districtвЂ™s new Chouchou hotel, itвЂ™s possible to miss the entrance entirely, drawn instead into Le MarchГ©, a food market which doubles as a venue for DJs, live music, and stand-up. Some hotels clearly set out to be places in which to gather as much as to sleep.

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