Bedded down in Paris

Shangri-La's ornate entrance.

The arrival of three big Asia-based groups in the past year - in the form of the Shangri-La Hotel Paris, the Royal Monceau Raffles and the Mandarin Oriental - has shaken up the seemingly timeless order of Parisian grand hotels with some of the most luxurious and priciest rooms in the world.

The new arrivals have also spurred Paris's existing grand hotels out of complacency. Le Meurice and Four Seasons' George V have been redoing bedrooms, the Bristol has added a new wing and brasserie, the Sofitel Faubourg has new fashion-themed suites and the Prince de Galles is to emerge next spring after total refurbishment - while keeping its art deco mood.

More international arrivals to come include the American-owned W Paris-Opera and Europe's first hotel from Hong Kong's Peninsula group.

Seven Hotel's 007 suite.

Thankfully, plenty of small independent hotels and period buildings have been transformed, too, often showing more originality than the international groups.

Le Royal Monceau — Raffles Paris

It's a self-proclaimed "hotel for creatives", complete with art bookshop and gallery, curator and art concierge, in-house cinema, mobile recording studio and a concept-fashion store from L'Eclaireur.

The ultra-modern Hi Matic.

Downstairs is a brilliantly buzzy meeting place - at the crossroads between the hotel's Long Bar, La Cuisine restaurant and the grand staircase, which is pretty much all that has been kept of the original 1928 hotel. There is also a sultry red fumoir (smoking room) and an Italian restaurant, Il Carpaccio, which resembles a Florentine Renaissance grotto.

Bedrooms are large, very large and extra large.This is the hotel where designer Philippe Starck proclaimed that he had rediscovered his "Frenchness" - but it's a 1940s France with a definite touch of Hollywood. There are plenty of gadgets in rooms, though.

37 avenue Hoche, 8th; Doubles from €780 ($1077); phone [phone]; see leroyalmonceau.com.

La Belle Juliette's antique flourishes.

Shangri-La Paris

Combining a great view of the Eiffel Tower with an illustrious pedigree as the former town house of Prince Roland Bonaparte (great-nephew of Napoleon), the Shangri-La is the most classically French of the new arrivals. It has giant porcelain vases at the entrance, staff in satin cheongsam dresses and a few Asian dishes on the menu, but essentially it offers an escape into a sybaritic vision of France past: a wedding-cake facade, grand stairway and historic salons that have been painstakingly restored with hand-gilded panelling and neoclassical friezes.

Apart from the modern penthouse suite and the imperial suite in Roland's former private apartment, which has nymphs dancing across the bathroom, the hotel's 81 rooms and suites are calmly classical, with deep beds and sofas, Empire taps and marquetry desks that hide the requisite cabling. The best have rooftop terraces with views of the Eiffel Tower.

The hotel has an excellent restaurant, L'Abeille, as well as the more casual, all-day La Bauhinia.

10 avenue d'Iena, 16th arrondissement; rooms including breakfast from €695 or from €1395 for an Eiffel Tower view; phone [phone]; see shangri-la.com.

Mandarin Oriental

Opened in June behind an art deco facade, the Mandarin is trumpeting its HQE (high quality environmental standard) credentials - but is a Royal Mandarin Suite of 350 square metres ecologically sound? The other 137 rooms are more sleek and businesslike, with plummy colours and a recurring textiles design motif of Man Ray's The Kiss. The lobby is lofty, with curtained niches and there is a courtyard where you can eat in what appears to be a birdcage.

This hotel wins on location, neatly placed between the Costes and Colette, and has a brilliant chef, Thierry Marx. His restaurant, Sur Mesure, is the hottest in town. At the all-day Camelia restaurant, watching the chefs at work will be part of the fun.

251 rue St-Honore, 1st; rooms from €780; phone [phone]; see mandarinoriental.com.

Saint James Paris

Sitting within walled grounds at the end of a gravel drive, the Saint James is the nearest Paris has to a country-house hotel. The original chateau was built at the end of the 19th century; in the 1980s it became a private club. It was subsequently bought by the family that owns the Relais Christine in St Germain - who brought in Bambi Sloan, a French-American decorator. Think gloriously over-the-top take on the Second Empire, or what they describe as "crazy chic".

The grand staircase is now a My Fair Lady extravaganza painted in black and white with a cascade of chandeliers. The listed library has leopard-spot carpeting and smart black sofas.

The 48 rooms and suites are an eclectic feast of antler lamps, tartan, chinoiserie or architectural prints; antique desks; and empire sofas. Service is discreet and courteous; the clientele one of old France and cosmopolitan visitors.

43 avenue Bugeaud, 75116 Paris; rooms and suites from €370; phone [phone]; see saint-james-paris.com.

La Maison Champs-Elysees

In a grand part of the 8th arrondissement, between the avenue Montaigne's couture houses and the Grand Palais , the Maison des Centraliens has had a gloriously ghostly revamping by the Maison Martin Margiela fashion house in a brilliant play of trompe l'oeil and mirrors. In the white salon, chairs are all swathed in trademark linen dustcovers as if they have just been abandoned, picture lamps light patches on the walls left by missing paintings and ceiling mouldings are black-and-white photographs.

The six suites are fantastical creations: one is papered in black-and-white panelling and fading chandeliers; another is all black with a cabinet of curiosities and bird-wing candelabras.

It's not all good news, however. Margiela designed only the 17 new couture rooms in the period building at the front, so be sure to specify you want to stay there, otherwise you will end up in one of the 40 redecorated but bland rooms in the wing at the back.

8 rue Jean-Goujon, 8th; rooms from €350, couture suite €1200; phone [phone]; see lamaisonchampselysees.com.

La Belle Juliette

Juliette Recamier, immortalised reclining on her chaise longue by the painter Jacques-Louis David in 1800, is the muse behind this lovely intimate hotel, the most sophisticated yet from the Hotels Paris Rive Gauche group, in a distinguished yet discreet corner of St-Germain-des-Pres.

Different floors represent periods of Juliette's life, in an agreeable mixture of historicism and the contemporary: carefully sourced antique prints in period frames and early editions of Romantic literature meet sleek modern console tables, Aalto chairs and iMacs and even the old bergere chairs rescued from the previous hotel.

Yet while the building and the inspiration are historic, the atmosphere and services are definitely of today.

92 rue du Cherche-Midi, 6th; rooms from €300 ; phone [phone]; see hotel-belle-juliette-paris.com.

Seven Hotel

Seven suites in seven moods, courtesy of four interior designers makes you want to try them all. They include the Alice suite, with White Rabbit coming out of the wall and a double lavatory where you can play chess; 007, for James Bond of the Sean Connery era, in slinky curved wood with the complete set of Bond films to watch on a screen; On/Off, with decor that changes at the turn of a switch; seductive Sublime, with a circular bed and deep sculpted carpet; or the caveman chic of Lovez-Vous, with its stone-clad walls, cowhide bath and open fire. Even the 28 ordinary rooms are out of the ordinary, with theatrically lit levitating beds (suspend your disbelief), starry ceilings and glowing floating shelves; some have levitating baths.

It could have been kitsch, but it succeeds in being young and fun, attracting an eclectic international clientele and young French couples in a Latin Quarter side-street location. There's a bar with misty mirrors, velvet seats and glass droplet lamps, and a basement that doubles as wine bar and breakfast room.

20 rue Berthollet, 75005 Paris; rooms from €177; phone [phone]; see sevenhotelparis.com.

Citizen Hotel

The name instantly hints that the ethos here is more republican, in a cool urban setting beside the Canal St-Martin. Twelve rooms beautifully crafted by the furniture designer Christophe Delcourt use lots of light wood, which seems to be moulded around every kink in the wall to maximise space.

Here the atmosphere really is laid-back and arty, with little in the way of service but a friendly welcome - and Petit Usagi, a casual Japanese bento-box restaurant, downstairs.

96 quai de Jemmapes, 10th; rooms from €179; phone [phone]; see lecitizenhotel.com.

Hi Matic

This ecological, economical hotel designed by Matali Crasset has transformed a seedy Bastille hotel into a pop-coloured conceptual experience.You book online, check in at a terminal and buy snacks from machines. The (organic) breakfast comes on a tray in the basement and information is delivered on an iPad. There's a mini desk in each room, and beds are a sort of tatami system with mattresses to be rolled up during the day.

While it seems made for a future franchise, the structure actually reduces the space in already small rooms. Probably not the sort of place you would want to stay for long but interesting to try.

71 rue de Charonne, 11th; from €101 including breakfast; see hi-matic.net.

Telegraph, London