This quirky new luxury Paris hotel is way cooler than its name implies

The hotel

Hotel Norman Paris

The sophisticated, design-forward Hotel Norman.

Check-in

In the so-called City of Love “Norman” may not seem the loveliest of names, at least to an Australian visitor’s ear (no offence to all of you Norms and Normans out there) for a chic Parisian hotel, and this hotel sure is chic. However, there’s a perfectly sound reason as to how this relatively new 37-room boutique hotel – it opened in February – acquired its moniker. Hotel Norman’s Paris-based architect Thomas Vidalenc chose Norman Ives, an American 20th-century modernist painter and designer, as his inspiration for this establishment “dedicated to world travellers drawn to open urban spaces, design, architecture, and the quality of human experiences”.

The “nerve centre” … restaurant Thiou’s adjacent bar and lounge.

The look

On arrival for a much-too-short overnight stay at the end of a week and a half visit to France, the decor and ambience has a distinct clubby, though not stuffy, ambience with the low-key reception space extending into a cosily inviting lounge-cum-library furnished with vintage sofas, eclectic objet d’art and its own fireplace. Tucked away below ground level is the hotel’s spa where Vidalenc has somehow managed to squeeze in both a lap pool and a sauna.

The room

The stylish suites feature modernist art, and custom furnishings offset with antique pieces.

The design story, confidently begun in the lobby and lounge, continues right through to the superbly designed and outfitted rooms and suites. Modernist abstract paintings, in a nod to Norman, adorn the walls with made-to-measure rosewood and oak furnishings complemented by pieces sourced from antique dealers. The snug bathroom features ceramic mosaic walls and a marble hand basin below a vanity fashioned from rosewood, glass and steel. Although a few rooms here have views of the Eiffel Tower, my corner suite with its curved window and balcony pleasantly overlooks an avenue dominated by 19th-century Haussman-style offices and apartments as well as a stately post office.

Food + drink

Food and wine at Thiou, Hotel Norman’s inhouse and upscale Thai restaurant.

No one comes to Paris to eat Thai (well, except perhaps for Thai tourists) but after 10 days or so in France, including a side-trip to the Franco-Germanic Strasbourg with its heavy cuisine, a change of diet for this inhouse guest is a welcome one. It can be found at Thiou, Hotel Norman’s inhouse and upscale Thai restaurant set in an elegant indoor and courtyard space. The menu at Thiou, named after the eponymous Thai chef, is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and includes such dishes as crispy soft shell crab, green mango salad with Thai herbs and roast fillet of sea bream with ginger and chives. After lunch or dinner (or even between), retire to what Hotel Norman likes to refer to as its “nerve centre”, namely the adjacent commodious bar and lounge where you can feel as comfortable ordering a coffee as you can a cocktail.

Out + about

What’s French for “on yer bike”? Thanks to the city’s semi successful (think: the Seine) pre-Olympic green push, Paris now boasts double the length of bike lanes and paths as Amsterdam. And with public bikes, including electric ones, for rent (BYO helmet) on virtually every avenue corner, cycling has become a fantastic and civilised means by which visitors can enjoy and explore the city. Do give a circumnavigation of the Arc de Triomphe roundabout roadway a miss, though.

The verdict

Balcony views dominated by stately Haussman-style buildings.

There’s nothing too normal about Hotel Norman, including the un-Paris-like inclusion of a Thai diner, and nothing too eccentric either. A member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World Collection, these stylish and sophisticated yet relaxed and unpretentious digs could be, in their own small, boutique way, a model for a cooler, more welcoming post-Olympics Paris.

Essentials

Rooms from $638 a night (low season). Hotel Norman, 9 Rue Balzac, Paris, France. Ph: [phone]. See slh.com. Qantas now operates three weekly direct non-stop flights Perth to Paris with connections to and from Sydney, Melbourne and other Australian capitals. See qantas.com

Our rating out of five

★★★★½

Highlight

The hotel’s enviable Right Bank location is right within walking or cycling distance of many of Paris’ most iconic attractions.

Lowlight

Utterly seduced by my designer suite, I confess to spending too much time in it and not in the Paris beyond. Oh well, non, je ne regrette rien and all that.

The writer stayed as a guest of Small Luxury Hotels of the World Collection and travelled courtesy of Qantas Airways.