The Complete Guide To: European boutique hotels

SMALL AND PERFECTLY FORMED?

Absolutely. Boutique hotels are generally understood to be chic little establishments characterised by their informal charm. Originally, though, the definition was rather tighter. The "boutique" style was created in New York back in 1984. This was when the entrepreneur Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell opened Morgans on Madison Avenue. It was quirky and individual, unlike the big brand-name hotels that were dominant at the time.

The term "boutique hotel" was coined by Rubell, who described their new venture as being like a boutique as opposed to a department store. Schrager and Rubell employed the Parisian designer Andrée Putman to devise the interior, so at the very outset the boutique hotel had an America- meets-Europe flavour. The overriding characteristics, though, were independence and originality.

The boutique hotel idea was soon adopted in Europe (although there are those who would argue this type of hotel had long existed on the Continent), and since then the trend has continued unabated. One of the first "boutique" hotels in Britain was 42 The Calls in Leeds (0113-244 0099; www.42thecalls.co.uk - doubles from £89 without breakfast), created from an old corn mill and retaining original machinery as well as sybaritic features such as handmade beds.

However, quirkiness and individuality are not necessarily the obvious keynotes of "boutique" hotels any more. Across the world, the term is now applied in a scatter-gun way to a variety of outfits: small luxury establishments with a modern edge and slick service; accommodation with innovative design; and so-called "lifestyle" hotels with an emphasis on casual elegance. The common ground is that they are all relatively small, with less than 100 bedrooms. None of them feels like a normal, boxy hotel, and most of them have individually devised rooms.

AN ANTIDOTE TO HOTEL CHAINS?

Well, not any more. Today there are chains of boutique hotels. This might sound suspiciously like a U-turn from the initial concept of one-off originality, but usually each property is strikingly individual, and the branding is discreet. The Stein chain (www.steinhotels.com), for example, has 10 boutique hotels across Europe, most of them in sympathetically refurbished historic buildings. Its latest opening is Gran Hotel Son Julia in Mallorca (00 34 971 66 97 00 - doubles from €240/£171 excluding breakfast), a lovely 15th-century country mansion near Palma, its walls hung with works by Hockney, Chagall, Warhol and more.

Meanwhile, The College (00 31 20 571 15 11; www.thecollegehotel.com - doubles from €235/£168 excluding breakfast) is set in a 19th-century Amsterdam school. In a subtle twist the 40-room hotel is still inhabited by students: Stein has made a selling point of the fact that hotel management trainees are given world-class tuition here.

Back in Britain, there's a laid-back atmosphere at the boutique Hotel du Vin chain (www.hotelduvin.com). Its seven sleek establishments range from a converted sugar warehouse in Bristol (0117-925 5577 - doubles from £130 without breakfast) to a former brewery in Henley-on-Thames (01491 848 400 - doubles from £115 without breakfast). Meanwhile, sister company Malmaison (www.malmaison.com) has nine city hotels designed as "affordable chic". The latest opening was last December in the former HM Prison Oxford, part of the 11th-century Oxford Castle. This has been dramatically made over in signature rich hues (01865 268400 - doubles from £140 room only, although currently a special offer gives weekend rates from £99).

I'D LIKE TO BE ULTRA-CHIC

One of London's most acclaimed new properties is Soho Hotel (020-7559 3000; www.sohohotel.com - doubles from £282 excluding breakfast) in the quiet back streets of the West End. Astonishingly, this used to be a multi-storey car park. Today, its imaginative décor attracts a very hip crowd in the public bars and restaurant. The 85 bedrooms are furnished with stripes and prints - some striking black and white, others more lively shades of green and fuchsia. All are equipped with flat-screen TVs, the bathrooms decked in granite. Two very comfortable drawing rooms with log-burning fireplaces and honesty bars are available for the exclusive use of resident guests.

Another unusual conversion is Iceland's 101 Hotel in Reykjavik (00 354 5800 101; www.101hotel.is - doubles from 28,900 Icelandic kronor/£251 without breakfast). The 38-room property is a stunning work of design set in the former headquarters of the Icelandic Democratic Party. It has been revolutionising attitudes to an island previously considered well off the chic tourist track. The exterior of this 1930s building is dauntingly austere but once you step inside you are in a masterpiece of minimalism: with its wood floors, fireplaces and leather furniture it manages to combine clean lines and very welcoming comfort. Bedrooms are generously large, as are the bathrooms, while the bar, with its dramatic glass ceiling and white leather stools, is where you'll find throngs of Iceland's beautiful people.

Over in Italy, Florence's JK Place on Piazza Santa Maria Novella (00 39 055 264 5181; www.jkplace.com - doubles from €290/£207 including breakfast) is superbly elegant. It feels like a very luxurious private mansion rather than a hotel and is furnished with artworks, antiques and four-posters. There are only 20 bedrooms, spread over four storeys, a small sitting room with welcoming log fire and a roof terrace offering great views over the rooftops of the city. With plenty of dining choices nearby and a concierge who can arrange for meals to be brought in, lack of a restaurant is no drawback.

FOR FUNKY APPEAL?

Hi Hotel in Nice (00 33 4 97 07 26 26; www.hi-hotel.net - doubles from €144/£103 with breakfast) certainly puts the fun into funky. The 38 rooms in this modern white building are fantastically decorated in violets, blues, pinks, mauves and more. They have been conceived on nine wacky concepts - in "digital" bedrooms, for example, the furniture is made out of computer screens; in "techno" rooms sofas double as loudspeakers, in "indoor terrace" rooms you sleep in beds sunk into teak decking. Should all this verge on being overwhelmingly weird, the staff are reassuringly down- to-earth. Meanwhile, facilities include a hammam, a glorious roof terrace with pool and a 24-hour self-service restaurant.

Berlin's Q! Hotel (00 49 30 810 0660; www.loock-hotels.com - doubles from €150/£107 including breakfast) is only slightly less kooky. There are 77 futuristic rooms (all, of course, with flat screen TVs and wi-fi): in some, beds are in space-age-like alcoves, in others the bath is integrated into the sleeping area, so you sleep next to your tub. When you open the door of your room the corridor lights up automatically. The hip bar is open until 3am most nights, the restaurant until 1.30am. But perhaps best of all is the basement spa complete with a reconstructed beach area with underfloor heating.

HOW ABOUT SOMEWHERE ANCIENT AND MODERN?

This is where some boutique hotels really excel, combining inventive design with historic features. One of the most gracious examples is the Widder Hotel in Zurich (00 41 44 224 25 26; www.widderhotel.ch - doubles from SFr665/£280 without breakfast) created out of eight medieval townhouses.

This mixes wooden beams and old stone walls with ultra-modern staircases and fittings. The décor of the 42 rooms and seven suites is truly eclectic, ranging from sleek modernism to sumptuous wooden panelling. Resourceful touches include the use of mirrors to produce a sense of space in some of the smaller bathrooms. The restaurant serves Swiss specialities along with other dishes, while the bar is a hip hangout.

Meanwhile, Paris offers a true visual confection: a 17th-century building and former boulangerie transformed into a gem of a hotel, its 17 bedrooms devised by the fashion designer Christian Lacroix. The five storeys of Hotel du Petit Moulin (00 33 1 42 74 10 10; www.hoteldupetitmoulin.com - doubles from €180/£129 without breakfast) are like a catwalk of couture fantasy. The walls of some rooms are covered in toile, others papered with bold strips. Alongside this cheerful riot of colours and textures the shop sign and some of the original mouldings have been carefully preserved. There's a small bar (open to residents only) but no restaurant, although, set in the northern Marais, the hotel is close to cafés and bistros.

I'D LIKE A SEA VIEW

It would be difficult to find a more sublime ocean outlook than that at Perivolas on the chic Greek island of Santorini (00 30 22860 71308; www.perivolas.gr - open April to October, doubles from €370/£264 including breakfast, through www.yourgreece.gr). In terms of originality, size and style this is very much a boutique hotel, yet the concept of this beautifully devised complex predates the Schrager-Rubell initiative: it was in the early 1970s that owner Costis Psychas started transforming traditional village cave-dwellings on his land into extremely stylish accommodation for visitors. The gradual and painstaking work has resulted in today's 17 villas. Elegantly yet simply furnished (with no intrusions of TV, DVD and the like), they are set in a natural amphitheatre that overlooks a glorious infinity pool and offers jaw-dropping views over Aegean Sea.

Further west in the Mediterranean, accommodation options on Corsica have recently been uplifted by the refurbishment and reopening of the Hotel Casadelmar at Porto Vecchio (00 33 4 95 72 34 34; www.casadelmar.fr - doubles from €330/£235 including breakfast). The once-tired property has become a sleek glass-and-stone haven with a sensational 25m infinity pool. It offers stunning vistas over the bay, as do the terraces of each of Casadelmar's 20 chic rooms.

In northern Europe, Stockholm's Hotel J (00 468 601 30 00; www.hotelj.com - doubles from 1,575 kronor/£116 including breakfast) is set on an island more-or-less at the point where the city starts dissolving across a wide archipelago and where urban life gives way to a watery playground of yachts and other boats. It is entirely apposite, then, that the hotel's décor - wood floors, blue and white stripes - is nautical chic. Meanwhile, the outlook over the harbour is sublime (but avoid the back rooms, which have no view). Chairs in the grounds by the water's edge are equipped with soft blankets so that you can wrap yourself up to sit outside on cool spring and summer evenings. Although the hotel only offers breakfast directly on site, Restaurant J is a sister outfit just a pebble's throw away on the same island. Set in a very trendy marina, it offers a menu emphasising the freshest of seafood.

ANY GOURMET RETREATS?

In Tuscany, chef Alain Ducasse has joined forces with wine producer Vittorio Moretti to transform a Medici hunting lodge into a gourmet getaway. Set on the increasingly popular south-west coast of the province, L'Andana (00 39 05 64 94 48 00; www.andana.it - doubles from €325/£232 including breakfast) has a no-nonsense restaurant emphasising Tuscan dishes based on the freshest ingredients available each day. The hotel has 33 elegant bedrooms and extensive grounds with a swimming pool, while a spa will be opening very soon and golf course is currently under development.

Over in the one-time home of the popes in Provence, La Mirande (00 33 4 90 14 20 20; www.la-mirande.fr - doubles from €295/£210 without breakfast) is Avignon's most historic - and charming - hotel. A former cardinal's palace, it oozes 17th- and 18th-century opulence, its 20 bedrooms furnished with antiques. The food factor is equally as stunning: under Sebastien Aminot, the Michelin-starred restaurant serves the likes of roasted blue lobster with gnocchi. You can learn how to emulate him (or at least attempt to) on cookery courses run by the hotel.

HOW ABOUT SPA FACILITIES?

Exuding rather more rustic Provençal charm, Villa Marie (00 33 4 94 97 40 22; www.villamarie.fr - doubles from €196/£140 without breakfast) is a 39-room retreat set in pine forests near St Tropez. It is the newest opening of hoteliers Jocelyne and Jean-Louis Sibuet, who also own Les Fermes de Marie in Megève, where a hugely successful range of spa treatments have been developed based on local plants. These, along with clay and hot stone therapies, are available in the woodland cabins or open air in the grounds of this peaceful country house by the sea.

In England, another country house offers its own brand of spa treatments. Behind a stately Georgian façade, Babington House in Somerset (01373 812 266; www.babingtonhouse.co.uk - doubles from £225 room only) is pared-down chic, its 28 bedrooms provided with flat-screen TV, wi-fi and more. In the ample grounds the extensive Cowshed spa (it was once a bovine shelter) is as generously equipped, offering indoor and outdoor pools, sauna and steam room as well as a yurt for treatments. These are based on Cowshed products, which are made from herbs grown in Babington's gardens.

DO I HAVE TO SPEND A SMALL FORTUNE?

Finding a "boutique"-type hotel room for less than £100 is achievable, although the choices are a bit slim. In Hamburg the funky Twenty Five Hours Hotel is very much geared for a young clientele, and even has a special rate to encourage this (00 49 40 855 070; www.25hours-hotel.de - doubles from €101/£72 excluding breakfast; for under 25s the rate drops to €61/£44). Its 89 rooms have been individually devised by newly graduated designers, and offer such retro features as Brionvega TVs with rounded corners and Sixties-style floor lamps. A living room-cum-library is currently under construction on the ground floor.

In Britain, a new, excellent-value design hotel chain is in the making. Dakota Nottingham (0870 442 2727; www.dakotahotels.co.uk - doubles from £84.50 excluding breakfast) opened in July 2004 and two more Dakotas are due to open soon - in Glasgow and Edinburgh respectively this year and next. Strictly speaking, the Nottingham property is slightly more of a business-style hotel than a boutique outfit: its 92 rooms are on the small side and have a uniform, if cool, style of exposed brick and leather. But you still get a sense of quirky innovation here - at a bargain price.

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE?

The Mr & Mrs Smith hotel guide books offer fun and informative advice on boutique places to stay: the UK and Ireland guide costs £19.95, the European Cities book £24.95 - both available online from www.mrandmrssmith.com (postage and packaging is included). Or consult the websites of marketing groups that have selected prime properties, including www.tablethotels.com; www.epoquehotels.com; www.designhotels.com; and www.slh.com.

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