The Boulevards occupy a unique place in Parisian geography. Serving as the historic demarcation between the center’s bourgeois neighborhoods and their popular suburbs, they have now hyphenated: a crossroads at the heart of the capital’s cultures. Only a few meters from the Poissonnière metro, we find the Bourse neighborhood and its passages, Sentier and its formidable pool of entrepreneurs, Montmartre and its theatres, Poissonnière and its hip restaurants, and Strasbourg Saint-Denis with its insomniac streets. The Parisian life forever infuses the Grand Boulevards with energy.

And so it is here, in an impressive building sitting slightly askew from the bustle, that, following the success of the Grand Pigalle, the Experimental Group decided to open its second Parisian hotel: l’Hôtel des Grands Boulevards. This building, one of only two that stands apart from the street, was built shortly after the French Revolution and is accessible only through a long entry that maintains its secretive character.

On the main floor is the Restaurant, featuring a menu designed in collaboration with Giovanni Passerini – a celebrated chef in the new Parisian gastronomic scene – and that revisits the great classics of French-Italian country cuisine. One delight in the myriad products served without artifice and the dishes to be shared in the covered courtyard and cocktail bar. Upon the floors, there are 50 rooms spaciously distributed and two hidden terraces. For the décor, designer Dorothée Meilichzon drew inspiration from the building’s origins and history, but without falling into the expected clichés of the Louis XVI style.