Why is that your first experience at any hotel, no matter how fancy, makes you feel like you’re waiting in line at a post office ? You’ve probably never asked yourself this question, but fortunately for you, Shahé Kalaidjian has. Which is why there is no check-in desk at the Hotel Sezz - design boutique hotel 4* -  at 6 Avenue Frémiet in Paris.

Instead, there’s this marvellous person who meets you when you arrive, and says hello in a friendly, thoroughly un-stiff kind of way that you’re not used to in a town that can be, let’s face it, a little uptight.
You sit down together in the hotel’s elegant, low-key lobby. Would you like a drink – coffee, tea, something with a little more kick? Of course you would. Why wouldn’t? And while you unwind, the two of you start chatting about what you prefer when you travel and what you are looking for during your stay in Paris.

You find yourself thinking, I like this person, so helpful and yet so … unpushy. You find yourself wishing they would stick around to give you a hand during your stay – making sure things run smoothly, getting you theatre tickets, going shopping with you to show you places not on every tourist map. Wish granted. This is your personal assistant who will be just a phone call away for the length of you stay at the hotel design boutique Sezz Paris.

Not to make too much of this, but it gives a flavor of the Hotel Sezz Paris approach. Shahé Kalaidjian owns the place, and it embodies his philosophy about what constitutes a luxury hotel in the 21st century. “Luxury is no longer what it was in the 1980s and ‘90s,” says Kalaidjian. “Today, the notion of luxury is space and service. The idea is simple: always say yes before you say no”. And space as in, say, 200 square feet. That’s the size of the smallest of the Sezz’s 26 rooms. The larger is 700 square feet. Large enough for you?

The look of luxury is about a lot more than buying nice lamps and chairs. The trick is pulling everything together in a seamless whole. Here Kalaidjian had the brilliant idea of hiring the gifted designer Christophe Pillet.

Welcome at Sezz Paris, design boutique hotel 4*.