Rue des Martyrs is a bustling artery in the vibrant SoPi district of Paris, with views of Sacré Coeur looming above. But hidden away at the very top of the street is an atypical haven. It’s a hotel in a land of butter where all of the meals are vegan, where classically Parisian design codes are broken in favor of warm wood and flowers and palo santo: HOY Hotel Paris.
It’s a hotel that makes you forget, for a moment, that you’re in Paris at all. And I know that might not be exactly what you’re looking for when deciding where to stay in Paris, but hear me out. In departing a bit from expectations, HOY manages to be exactly the kind of space that transforms a vacation into something truly restorative. I should know — when I visited, I was right on the edge of burnout. Instead of succumbing to stress, I emerged from HOY grounded and soothed in a way I hadn’t been in years.
The Difficulty With Many Modern Vacations
I have lived in Paris for 20 years. As a tourism professional, I see time and again the way that a “vacation” can actually bring people’s most present stressors to the surface. And today’s modern world amplifies that in more ways than you’d expect.
Algorithmically-primed social media seems intent on sowing FOMO, regularly surfacing three alternatives that may prove better than the bistro you booked. That carefully cultivated plan of “must-do” museums, sights, and landmarks starts to feel just as stressful as the workday to-do list from back home.
Add to that the fact that our healthy routines and practices around movement, meals, screentime, and sleep hygiene tend to go out the window on vacation, and the reality is that many people may head home from a holiday feeling even more tired and burnt out than when they left.
HOY Is a Haven in Central Paris
While I’m a local in Paris, I myself tend to be a serial vacation ruiner. On our last vacation to Rome, I led my girlfriend on a forced march of the capital, covering 45,000 steps in a single day. By nightfall, our batteries — both our phones and our emotional ones — were fried. It’s a more-is-more energy I bring to my day-to-day life, too, and one that I was unfortunately carrying with me the day of our visit to HOY.
It all started when I met my girlfriend on a street corner in SoPi after a long day of work. I’d given her an address at random, hoping to surprise her with a hotel staycation as a way for us to reconnect. But my surprise only managed to destabilize her: She hadn’t packed an overnight bag, she fretted, and while I had grabbed some things for her, I’d forgotten her pajamas.
All of this added up to a somewhat terse mood as we approached the door of our destination, and I found myself fearing and hoping in equal measure that she would decide to just go home. Maybe I’d get caught up on my ever-increasing deadlines, I told myself as I reached for the handle to the door and pressed inside.
Then all at once, something seemed to change.
It’s All in the Details
The curtain parted to reveal warm, honeyed tones of upcycled tile flooring, pale wood, and an absolute tumble of flowers. The door closed behind us, sealing the agitation of cars and crowds away and enveloping us in a sense of calm within the hotel. The aroma of palo santo wafted towards us as we approached the smiling manager at the front desk.
“Welcome,” she said, and I felt something in my body exhale as we collected our heavy key — no plastic, electric key cards here — and rode the elevator to our room. These and other details that have come to define HOY aren’t random; they’re carefully curated by founder Charlotte Gomez de Orozco, the fourth generation of her family to work in the industry.
“I’m very attentive, when I go into spaces where I feel good, to ask myself why,” she explains. “Is it the wood calling to me? Is it the color?”
She says she thinks carefully about all five senses when creating a space designed to make people feel good. “And they, because they feel good, contribute to the overall energy of the space.”
HOY Isn’t Just a Hotel — It’s an Ecosystem
Our room was spacious and filled with light. As I set my belongings down, my girlfriend fluttered around the space, noticing things: no coffee, but rather a range of house infusions; no television, but rather a set of yoga mats. It was only the views of the classic grey slate roofs that reminded us we were in Paris.
But the rooms are only part of what makes HOY a haven. Gomez de Orozco designed the hotel, in large part, with locals in mind — herself chief among them.
“The idea came about quite selfishly,” she laughs, recalling her early days in the industry, when she was constantly burned out and stressed. “When you work in hotels and restaurants, you spend your life at work,” she says, noting that when she opened her first business — a wine bar — at 21, “I worked like a dog for two years, and the first vacation I took after two years, it kind of changed my life.”
She found that despite the fact that she was “supposed to” be relaxing, the holiday only brought the signs of her prolonged stress to the surface: eczema, panic attacks. Her throat felt tight; she had a hard time breathing. “I had a month of vacation,” she recalls, “and I couldn’t take advantage of it at all.”
It was after a yoga class that she discovered the restorative benefits of the practice, and she decided to open a hotel where visitors could participate in yoga and other relaxing amenities right on site.
The Concept of a ‘Third Space’
“The idea of creating a third space where everything could happen in the same place came from the fact that when I was travelling, I couldn’t find it,” Gomez de Orozco says. She has created not just a hotel, but rather a small ecosystem, boasting state-of-the-art treatments like massages, reiki, and sound baths.
I had not had the forethought, however, to reserve treatments for me and my girlfriend. As she looked at the menu, I found my body standing at attention once more: with FOMO, with guilt. Would my girlfriend have been happier if I’d planned a massage for her? Would that have made me more relaxed, make us feel more connected?
I grasped at straws, remembering that the manager told us that we could still take advantage of the meditation room where these treatments took place. Newly hopeful, we headed back downstairs to collect the key and unlocked the door into a cozy cocoon.
“Wow,” my girlfriend breathed, and we giggled softly as we turned on each and every one of the flickering electric candles. We switched on the pink salt lamps and sat in the comfortable chairs, holding hands and talking in low voices. And there, away from our screens and our lists and the heavy burden of our day-to-day, we were able to reconnect.
Restorative Meals that Feel Good to Eat
My girlfriend is vegetarian, which means that when we’re dining out in Paris, she’s often forced to pick between an expensive “market vegetable plate” or a too-heavy pasta dish that ditches subtlety in favor of fat. And she’s not the only one who occasionally finds herself disappointed in French culinary offerings. Travelers rarely want to admit that local restaurants aren’t as “restorative” as their name suggests. After a few too many heavy meals in Paris, I’ve often heard visitors shamefacedly complaining that they’re craving a salad or some fiber.
HOY’s on-site restaurant, Mesa, is yet another departure from Parisian tradition. The vegan restaurant offers a creative, internationally-inspired à la carte menu of dishes like oyster mushroom tacos and Thai curry with spring vegetables.
What We Ate
On our visit, we opted to take advantage of the 69-euro five-course tasting menu, which embraced healthy fats like coconut milk in a seasonal pea velouté and aromatic ginger in a hearty mushroom ravioli — all the while still showcasing the technique and finesse that French gastronomy is known for. It’s plant-based food the likes of which is still rare in Paris, where vegan restaurants seem eternally stuck in the ‘90s-era crunchy granola phase. Here, the fare is creative and delicious, healthful without feeling like diet food.
Breakfast proved even more restorative. Instead of the more typical hotel buffet that encourages overindulgence, we chose from a small menu of quality-driven offerings. Everything was delicious, from my girlfriend’s rustic quinoa croissant to my own coconut-based chia pudding with yogurt, fresh fruit, nuts, and a house-made almond praline. We sipped exquisite filter coffee from local Parisian roastery Ten Belles as I prepared myself for the last part of my visit: a yoga class.
The House of Yoga
HOY’s yoga studio is a cornerstone of its space — HOY has the double meaning of ‘today’ in Spanish (Gomez de Orozco’s native tongue) and an acronym for ‘House of Yoga.’ I knew that I wanted to test the offerings as part of my visit. That said, I’m not an experienced yogi. At the gym, I’m the one who picks the 30-minute HIIT class for the most efficient workout and watches the clock until the last second. I’m ill-accustomed to being in my body or quieting my mind.
Needless to say, I didn’t necessarily have high expectations. After breakfast, I kissed my girlfriend goodbye and changed into my spandex, telling myself that I’d only need 15 minutes of the 1-hour class I’d booked to get enough of a sense of the offerings to write about them.
I stepped into the dark room lit with flickering candles and warmed with heat lamps… and somehow, time seemed to stand still. I barely noticed the time passing as I followed the instructor’s quiet, expert guidance. When finally she bid us goodbye, I emerged in a daze. Had I really just spent an hour without wondering when our time would be up?
“It’s the whole experience,” says Gomez de Orozco of the other-worldly passage of time unique to the classes here. “That it’s in the dark, that we have infra-red lights, that there’s music.”
When I walked out, I felt as though I had found myself, there at HOY. The proof? I’ve since become a regular at the studio.
A Hotel Conceived for Locals
On both my first and return visits to HOY, I’ve noticed that the space is forever bustling — not just with visitors, but with locals. It may be counterintuitive, but for Gomez de Orozco, this is part of what makes it so attractive for tourists.
“I was obsessed with the idea that there would be Parisians here,” she says, noting that about half of the people who use the space — the yoga studio, the treatment room, the restaurant — are locals. “When you travel, there’s nothing worse than being in a place where there’s only tourists. You want to be with people, to live a local’s life.”
As I stepped out of the hotel, back into my own local’s life, the neighborhood seemed to vibrate in a new way. The grey Parisian sky no longer seemed suffocating; the honking horns and laughter no longer grated on my nerves. I remembered the life I’ve cultivated: one that, yes, is sometimes stressful, but allows me to live here, in Paris.
“I think that our clients are happy to be in a space where Montmartre is right there, where they have the neighborhood feel of rue des Martyrs,” says Gomez de Orozco. “And at the same time, when they get to the hotel, they want to relax. They want to feel good.”
And that’s exactly how I feel every time I return.
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