Parisian cool on the Left Bank

There is nothing intimidating about the name. Quite the opposite: “Hôtel Lulu” immediately suggests a certain easygoing spirit. Head to the Left Bank, between the Luxembourg Gardens – the inspiration behind the diminutive “Lulu” – and the Latin Quarter, an area known for understated refinement and bohemian creativity. Here, the new 27-room lifestyle hotel slips naturally into its surroundings, with a coffee shop, a glass-roofed winter garden and a piano bar. Former fashion journalist Vanessa Scoffier has created interiors that lean more modernist than brutalist, pairing raw concrete with brushed stainless steel and setting the tone from the moment you walk in. The same attention extends to the guest rooms, where everything from plush carpeting to the Mediterranean tones of the bathrooms has been carefully considered –enough to make a first stay lead naturally to a second, and perhaps many more.