9 Gorgeous Paris Hotels Under $250

The name alone, short for “Community of Quality,” reveals a lot about what this 50-room debut delivers in Paris’s quiet 13th district. Designed like an intimate guest house, C.O.Q. is thoughtfully decorated while still feeling lived in: contemporary and vintage pieces mix as if collected over time, while textural elements including merino wool throws, rattan chairs, oil paintings, and honeycomb-shaped mirrors add depth to the spacious yet spare rooms. There’s a unique sense of comfort, too, in the multi-use lounge, where a café serves light bites, a transitional corner is used for board games and movie screenings, and a tiny shop sells collectible souvenirs.

With 11 locations in some of Europe’s hottest cities, from Copenhagen to Berlin, the Generator mini-empire has turned the notion of the youth hostel on its head. These outposts are more like funky boutique hotels, filled with avant-garde design, hip public spaces, and très desirable features like rooftop bars. The Paris location, for instance, sports retro-inspired furniture like leather butterfly chairs, industrial-chic warehouse light fixtures, and Hans Wegner-style seats in the Moroccan-inspired chill-out zone.

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Consider the Experimental Group and their long-time collaborator, Dorothée Meilichzon, the Steven Spielberg and John Williams of the hospitality world — every project they do together is a home run. For the 37-room Grand Pigalle, the group’s first hotel, Meilichzon injected a dose of classic French design with British personality by incorporating metallic wallpaper, quirky door knockers in the shape of pineapples, martini-patterned carpets, and room keys strung with large leather tassels. Along with Hotel Panache, Le Grand Pigalle is part of an exciting revival happening in Paris’s once-seedy red light district. Ask for a corner room, which overlooks the neighborhood of Montmartre. After a drink (or two) at the dim-lit bar, take a stroll through hip South Pigalle, lined with gourmet food shops and even more cocktail lounges.

We love a good Art Deco find, especially when it involves Dimore Studio, known for their artful mix of design styles and eras. A two-year overhaul has transformed a five-story 1791 mansion steps from the Opera Garnier into the Hôtel Saint-Marc. Each of the 26 colorful rooms is a perfect marriage of vintage and modern, featuring bold print drapes, Dedar velvet sofas in hues like mustard yellow and dusky blush, rugs from Louis de Poortere, and geometric brass headboards. The restoration revived the glass-topped, trellis-lined courtyard and there's a blissful indoor heated swimming pool and hammam.

On the coattails of his instant success with Hôtel Paradis, hotelier Adrien Gloaguen has brought Paris another bijou to its colorful opera district. The oddly shaped building and former Opéra Madrid hotel contains equally bizarre layouts for its 40 rooms, but go-to decorator Dorothée Meilichzon navigated the challenge beautifully, individually designing each space with offbeat wallpaper, statement pendant lighting, and angular motifs found in beveled-edge mirrors and triangular wall tiles. It’s a playful mashup of patterns, perspectives, and haphazard small spaces, but somehow, it all works.

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Parisian bar mogul Pierre Moussié is taking over the 10th arrondissement. After opening the wildly popular Chez Jeannette and the very bobo Brasserie Barbès, he’s now entered the hotel scene with the 18-room Hôtel Providence, in an 1854 Haussmannian building and former brothel. You might describe the look, courtesy of his wife Elodie and friend Sophie Richard, as “eclectic romance” — velvet palm wallpaper from House of Hackney, carpets inspired by Madeleine Castaing designs, Victorian paintings hung above marble fireplaces, and mini cocktail bars in every room with a recipe book and ice cubes (we suspect they’re Moussié’s favorite touch). Completing the picture: a Gothic speakeasy-style restaurant and bar on the ground floor that could pass for any English aristocrat’s hunting lodge.

It’s fitting that one of the city’s most vibrant new hotels has opened in the bohemian 9th arrondissement. Stepping into Hôtel Grand Amour, the sister property to Hotel Amour next door, is like entering the surreal dreams of its owner, graffiti artist and nightclub manager André Saraiva (the man behind Le Bain in New York’s Standard Hotel and Paris's Le Baron). Think hot pink and baby blue hallways, provocative Pierre Frey carpeting, zero TVs (a purposeful exclusion, as Saraiva himself doesn’t own one), and 42 rooms filled with flea-market finds and expressive prints by luminaries like Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Keith Haring.

Paris’ newest brand flagship has debuted on a sleepy street in the 8th arrondissement. Amastan aims to be a home away from home for the city’s creative class, where the 24 rooms on six floors channel apartment-style living with blue herringbone parquet floors and walls, all-white bathrooms, and hints of lacquered oak and brass. Elsewhere, the design is very new-age, from Anouk, a bar that opens onto a garden with rock shelf seating, to the custom lobby tapestry by carpet designer Jan Kath, to Pop-In, a project space for art, fashion, and design installations. Head there for a browse, then stop by the two-floor library for further reading.

The city's first floating hotel created serious buzz when it opened this summer, helping bring life along the Seine back into the spotlight. The catamaran-like Off Paris Seine, docked near the Charles de Gaulle Bridge, is more boat than hotel—porthole curtains, stylish if tiny rooms, a driftwood reception desk—but everyone's here for the scene, which comes to a head at happy hour when the bar (two glassed-in rooms divided by an exposed plunge pool) opens up to the public for drinks and tapas. Thanks to a connected riverbank terrace, you can enjoy the best of Paris by land and sea.

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Okay, so this hotel doesn't quite make it the under-$250 price tag, but if you're looking to splurge a bit, this newcomer pulls out all the stops. Steps from the Louvre and the Palais Royal gardens, the Nolinski is a fresh icon of French elegance. Evok Hotels brought in renowned French designer Jean Louis Deniot to reimagine a Haussmann landmark building on the fashionable Avenue de l’Opéra. The result? A swish lobby of Carrera marble, an ethereal staircase painted with clouds, and eye-catching details like sleek pedestals balancing neoclassical sculptures, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and surprising pops of color.