Paris, France · Design · ★★★★★
"Philippe Starck built a hotel for the 16th arrondissement that understands the 16th arrondissement — which is to say, a place for serious people who have stopped needing to announce it."
The Brach occupies an extraordinary building on Rue Jean Richepin in the 16th arrondissement — a neighbourhood of Haussmann avenues, Trocadéro gardens, and the specific quiet that comes from residential density without tourist volume. Philippe Starck's design for the EVOK Collection opened in 2019 with a 59-room programme that takes the hotel as a place of active living rather than comfortable retreat. The rooftop urban farm — producing herbs and vegetables for the hotel's kitchen — establishes the value system from the start.
The rooms are resolved with Starck's characteristic material intelligence: natural woods, woven textiles, handmade ceramics, and the kind of light management that makes a room feel genuinely different at noon and midnight. Standard rooms are not large; the suites are more generous. The hotel's approach to design is cohesive rather than theatrical — materials chosen for longevity and sense rather than impact.
The wellness offer is the hotel's strongest argument. A 20-metre indoor pool, a hammam, a fully equipped gym, and a spa programme that draws from integrative wellness rather than traditional luxury protocols create a genuinely functional health facility inside a design hotel. The restaurant takes seasonal and local sourcing seriously — the rooftop farm supplies some of the produce; the market at the Rue de la Pompe covered market supplies the rest.
The 16th arrondissement location deserves specific attention. The Trocadéro gardens — with their Eiffel Tower view across the Seine — are a ten-minute walk. The Palais de Chaillot and its cluster of excellent museums are five minutes. The Jardins du Ranelagh are fifteen. For guests who want Paris as a city to walk rather than to experience from a palace lobby, the Brach's neighbourhood istyle="color:var(--t2);line-height:1.8;margin-bottom:40px;">
The Brach's 20-metre pool, hammam, gym, and integrative spa programme make it the most complete wellness hotel in Paris outside the palace tier. The 16th arrondissement adds the walking infrastructure: parks, gardens, and riverside paths that extend the wellness framework beyond the hotel's walls. The rooftop farm connects the kitchen to the wellness philosophy without making a ceremony of it.
The Brach suits the traveller who defines retreat as engagement rather than withdrawal. The 16th offers serious museums, serious restaurants, and the Trocadéro gardens for the evening walk that clarifies a working week. The hotel's spa and pool are available without the crowd the more famous addresses attract. The design is calibrated for a guest who notices materials.
The Brach is the anniversary hotel for couples who care about wellness, design, and a Paris neighbourhood that doesn't feel curated for tourism. Book a suite, use the pool, eat at the restaurant — which takes the produce from the roof seriously — and walk to the Trocadéro at dusk for the Eiffel Tower view that remains unreasonably effective.
Rates shown are approximate. Verify at time of booking.
The King's Suite
Monthly. No noise.