France A Bon Vivant's Guide to Paris

Like any city worth its sel, Paris is several cities in one. Having been fashioned and refashioned through&shyout its tumultuous history, it has many faces, regal luxury and tubercular poverty being only one of its many contradictions. It&rsquos grimy and refined, strictly ordered and cheerfully insouciant about rules, ragged round the edges but aristocratic at heart.

The most uniformly beautiful facet of the city, one quite inscrutable to me, is on the regal Right Bank. The preserved Haussmanian heart of Paris special&shyises in a discreet, old-world luxury that is hard to resist. It&rsquos a film set come to life that invokes invol&shyuntary nostalgia for a past I&rsquove never even seen that particular golden Paris light, patrician pavement caf&eacutes, manicured parks and manicured dogs, nary a patrician pebble out of place. (The many fanny packs on the horizon are the only bum note.) And its invi&shytations are windows into a world of opulent living.

Just off the Champs-Elys&eacutees, for instance, I was confronted by the most exquisite mackerel in the world. Mackerel is a fish I ordinarily sniff at, but this particular exemplar was indubitably the Platonic ideal of mackerel. The sun, stream&shying through the French windows of Le Diane, the Michelin-starred restaurant at the hotel Fouquet&rsquos Barri&egravere, hit the silvery wedge of fish, its red rhu&shybarb jus and tiny purslane leaves just right. It was a miniature painting, all bright tones and micro&shyscopic brushwork.

By Paris standards, Fouquet&rsquos Barri&egravere is the new kid on the hotel block. Though the legendary Fouquet&rsquos brasserie has existed since the late 1890s, the hotel was only built recently, in 2006. The hotel itself spans five fin-de-si&egravecle buildings, built around a courtyard so calm you can&rsquot credit that it&rsquos just off the noisy Champs-Elys&eacutees. The futuristic-baroque lobby is all glitz marble floors, chocolate leather and gold laurel leaves, and in contrast to the tophatted doormen at Paris&rsquos older hotels, Fouquet&rsquos guardians sport fedoras. The hotel keeps its hip guests happy with 24-hour butlers, &lsquocarbon-neutral&rsquo bookings, and Pop Earth, Maison Pommery&rsquos organic cham&shypagne (labels printed with non-toxic ink on recycled paper). The brasserie, still in its trademark cognacs, reds and golds, hosts the C&eacutesar nominees&rsquo luncheon and the after-party, as well as hundreds of awestruck tourists daily.

Upstairs, however, is the real star Le Diane, small and serene, like a jewel box. The circular room is resplendent in puce and purple tones, taffeta and damask, lit by white 1930s-style Murano glass lamps. Even the food has a jew&shyelled clarity to it, each portion a tiny mosaic of multiple ingredients. After that incomparable mackerel came a ravioli of quail confit and mush&shyroom, capped by roasted supreme of quail, and then citrus-crusted monkfish with the season&rsquos first asparagus.

Ga&eumltan Fiard, the 25-year-old pastry chef was away at the Mondial des Arts Sucr&eacutes, the World Cup of confectionary (which he won). But you&rsquod never have known it from the dense chocolate and morello cherry entremet with a mouthpuckering tart cherry sorbet, cherry confit, and vanilla-scented cream. I was lost in admiration when the ma&icirctre d&rsquo appeared with coffee and a goldfish bowl of orange slices, cinnamon and star anise, the top crowned by thin chocolate petals, lightly perfumed from below. The considered delicacy of every gesture here was like a piece of music, the crisp white wine that the som&shymelier suggested ringing round every mouthful.

Afterwards, I staggered down to take the Met&shyro to the Boulevard Haussman. The grand department stores of the Galeries Lafayette and Printemps were the ultimate in 19th century chic when they opened. Printemps pioneered the idea of discount sales and window displays, which reeled in the Parisian &lsquomidinettes&rsquo, young working girls who would skip their midday meal to go shopping.

Fortunately, in the VIP rooms, you do not have to forego lunch. The Guest Relations department will escort you to a lounge, where personal shoppers bring you pre-culled outfits according to your size and taste, make you a &lsquolookbook&rsquo so you&rsquoll remember their suggestions, and arrange alterations. They will make reservations at the in-house salon or restau&shyrants, arrange tax refunds or park that unwieldy limousine for you there is also a concierge service for when you&rsquore all dressed up and need somewhere to go. Rhea Sarraf Paris, one of the department&rsquos managers, said that the VIP rooms were popular with customers buying expensive jewellery, who could browse their choices at length. For even more privacy, she added, occasionally for visiting roy&shyalty, they open the entire store after hours, or take selected items over to the customer&rsquos hotel.

Luxury of this kind chiefly means insulation against the crowd a shop&rsquos wares laid out for you, a private boat, a helicopter tour of the Loire. Anne Kiefer, luxury consultant and founder of event company Anne de Paris, specialises in this sort of exclusive experience, and in opening doors other&shywise closed to tourists. She sets up visits to perfume houses, museum tours on closed days, VIP wine tastings at reclusive wineries, and sought-after restaurant reservations. Two of her most popular of&shyferings are a visit to Giverny, Claude Monet&rsquos home, conducted by one of the Monet family members, she said, and a backstage tour of the Opera Garnier, peeking at the studios, dressing rooms and perhaps even eavesdropping on a rehearsal.

Kiefer also frequently arranges behind-the-scenes visits to couturiers&rsquo studios or iconic ateliers such as the Herm&egraves workshops in Paris many of her guests are fascinated to learn about the centuries-old traditions of leatherwork or dress&shymaking that underpin Paris&rsquos most famous labels. In September this year, she will focus on the Bi&shyennale des Antiquaires at the Grand Palais &ldquoIt gathers all the big galleries and also the high-end jewellery makers, who make special collections. VIP custom&shyers come to preview the new pieces from all over the world, so it&rsquos a very busy time for me.&rdquo

Later that weekend, at Le Meurice&rsquos Valmont spa, I contemplated the line be&shytween luxury and excess, not very objectively, while basking in the hammam. Outside, a fountain sput&shytered ice chips, and trays waited with cold grapefruit juice and water. My &ldquoRituel Energie&rdquo facial was administered by a woman in a white lab coat the gluey collagen mask with its pre-cut holes for my face had a suggestion of the Man in the Iron Mask about it but unlike him, I emerged with softened, refreshed skin. The rough bathrobe struck the only jarring note, ruining my fugue-like illusion of float&shying through a very expensive ocean.

In the gold-emblazoned lobby above, I was cer&shytain that my newly poreless face blended in much better than two hours ago. As the benign concierg&shyes beamed over their domain, guests came in and out bearing Colette or Bruno Frisoni bags. At Le Dali, the café-restaurant, families in pastel spring scarves drank early aperitifs before wandering off into the Tuileries gardens it was the first sunny day of the year.

Le Meurice was born in 1817 during the Bourbon Restoration (the Tuileries address dates back to 1835), and from its inception, has always traded in nostalgia, attempting to recall a Bourbon decadence long past. The three-star Alain Ducasse restaurant was inspired by the Salon de la Paix at Versailles, while the rococo Salon Pompadour is a replica of its Versailles counterpart. However, Philippe Starck&rsquos recent remodel was inspired by something more modern favoured guest Salvador Dali (notwith&shystanding the damage his pet ocelots caused to the

Suite Royale). Now portraits of Madame de Pompa&shydour rub shoulders with a replica of Dali&rsquos famous lobster-handled telephone and a table sporting hu&shyman legs ending in silver stilettos (which she might well have appreciated).

Upstairs, the rooms are Louis XIV-inspired, dressed in Marie-Antoinette-approved pastels. Many look out onto the glorious expanse of the Tu&shyileries. On the second floor, the wallpaper has been stripped to reveal the original pale wood below, and the colours are mints and sages, like the green of a Ladur&eacutee macaron box.

Despite the Dali touches, the general effect remained that of a sumptuous Fragonard painting. &ldquoLuxe, calme et volupté,&rdquo said the voice of Baude&shylaire in my ear, from another study of nostalgia, written in 1857 as an invitation &ldquoau voyage&rdquo to a lost, ideal world.

&ldquoThere all is order and beauty
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.&rdquo

The next afternoon, on the Left Bank (which, contrary to rumour, is just as expensive as the Right), I walked up the rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevi&egraveve to the De Vinis Illustribus cellars. The shop is the culmina&shytion of a lifelong interest in wine Dominique and Lionel Michelin have run this labour of love for over twenty years. We sat around a table whose centrepiece was a basket of rock samples from the French wine-growing regions, as they explained how their private degustations may compare dif&shyferent regions, or offer a range of flavours from a single area or year. Their wine &lsquogallery&rsquo divides its efforts between big-name bottles and a curated selection of &lsquocoup de coeurs&rsquo, affordable wines of excellent quality (their prices range from &euro13 a bottle to &euro13,000). Down in the cellar, showing me their oldest bottles (a 1916 Bordeaux and a 1811 fine champagne Cognac) Lionel told me that clients ask for a bottle from the year of their birth, or their wedding day (he tries to dissuade them from &ldquoso-so years&rdquo). I asked him about my birth year, offhand. He responded immediately. &ldquo1986 Yes,&rsquo86 is a very interesting year, especially in Bor&shydeaux, because the weather was good. On the left banks of Bordeaux, most wines are produced with cabernet sauvignon, and cabernet sauvignon was very ripe in &rsquo86. So it gives very interesting wines Margaux, Pomerol, St-Est&egravephe.&rdquo

The Michelins were both hugely knowledge&shyable, but charming and unintimidating about it. We had agreed on a three-wine tasting, but when the conversation turned to aged and un&shyaged wines, Lionel brought out another couple to illustrate his point. Dominique produced a platter of charcuterie and paté from the back room, and revealed the address of her fromager (worth its weight in gold). They bickered com&shypanionably over whether or not the bubbles in champagne are caused by particles in the flute (Dominique &ldquoThat&rsquos saying the glass is dirty&rdquo), and Google finally proved Lionel right. We overran our designated two hours by another two, and didn&rsquot notice.

I walked out to find a violet dusk falling. Luxe, calme et volupté is in the orchestration of the small things, I thought, when everything is at your dis&shyposal and everyone conspires to make your time in the city superlative. It&rsquos a privilege that you pay for, but it can happen serendipitously as well. I was pleasantly tipsy as I walked towards the Lux&shyembourg gardens on my way home. In my head, Baudelaire insisted on finishing his poem

&ldquoThe canals, the whole city,
With hyacinth and gold
The world falls asleep
In a warm glow of light.
There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.&rdquo

The information

Where to stay
Hotel Fouquet&rsquos Barri&egravere (from &euro544 per night lucienbarriere. com) on the tranquil Avenue George V just off the bustling Champs Elys&eacutees scores not only with its outstanding location but also its five great restaurants and three bars a spa endowed with one of largest pools in Paris rooms done up in mahagony, silk and velvet and an exceptional concierge service that can materialise impossible reservations in a jiffy. Hotel Le Bristol (from &euro770 per night lebristolparis.com/eng) on the elite rue du Faubourg Saint Honore, at the very heart of Parisian fashion and art, is all about muted, old-wordly elegance, impeccably refurbished in the classical styles of the 18th century. Midnight in Paris was shot here, by the way, and the hot chocolate tasting is very memorable. Four Seasons Hotel George V (from &euro1200 per night fourseasons.com/paris) also presides gloriously over the same neighbourhood as the Fouquet neighbourhood although neither property would do anything as crass as compete. The private terraces are as delightful as the extravagant floral arrangments, the 18th century tapestries have been restored painstakingly, and you musn&rsquot be tempted by the pampering room service into breakfast in bed&mdashthe regal morning repast deserves to be enjoyed formally.

What to see & do
Anne de Paris (10, place Vend&ocircme 33-0-6-13-79-71-60 anne@anne-de-paris.com anne-de-paris.com) arranges &lsquoexclusive emotions&rsquo in great style. The ultra-luxury specialist gives bespoke service a whole new spin and it would seem nothing is beyond her reach&mdasha cooking lesson with renowned chef, a museum reserved just for you and your invitees&mdashwhatever you could possibly imagine, she has thought of already. You will need an appointment to visit the De Vinis Illustribus (48 rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevi&egraveve 1-43-36-12-12 devinis.fr), and a more charming experience in understanding and tasting wine would be hard to find. Located inside Le Meurice, a Dorchester Collection hotel, the plush Spa Valmont (228 rue de Rivoli 1-44-58-10-10 evalmont. com) reopened in September 2012 after a &lsquorevitalising&rsquo, with its reputation as an exceptional skin care specialist only glowing a little more. To call Printemps (64 Boulevard Haussman 1-42-82-50-00 printemps.com) a department store would be rather like referring to Paris as, well, a metropolis. Ask for guest relations and head straight for the VIP rooms, please.