Mama Shelter Paris East is very stylish, uncommonly funky and unusually inexpensive. Rooms start at just £85 a double (last minute) including breakfast. The 170 rooms designed by the great Philippe Starck are quirky, bijou but big enough to deliver all one could need. The staffs were truly ‘lovely’, helpful, accommodating to the last and very hep in that ever so au naturel Paris fashion. To add, the restaurant with it’s dishes created by triple Michelin starred, Guy Savoy, is nothing less than magnificent. They proffer traditional French fare (both vegetarian and other wise) with an exotic Asian edge and all very reasonably priced. I opted for a starter of fried parseleyed mushrooms with soft boiled eggs and Trevelez ham that was off the scale of gorgeous while my companion chose a green lentil salad with mustard vinaigrette sauce with herbs that was equally sublime. For main I was compelled to try the Flak steak with homemade French fries and pepper sauce purely because no where does steak and chip like the Parisians and chose well as this want like any such I’d ever come across. My guest plumped for the farm chicken with mushrooms and buttered mash potatoes with a mustard juice, which almost allowed me food envy but not quite. Before we adjourned we thought it rude not to try a desert so shared almond milk ice cream with caramelised almonds and a red fruit sauce that really was the proverbial icing on the cake. We were to go out on the town afterwards to nearby groovy, Menilmontant and Belleville but, as there was a rather capable DJ playing g pleasing funk music and a lovely bar we allowed ourselves a few rather marvellous cocktails – a Hemingway Daiquiri and the vodka based Cucumber de la Mama, which were again unimpeachable- and retired. We awoke the next day and made the most of the one of he finest breakfasts this well travelled scribe has ever encountered (poached eggs, top notch bacon, French sausage, Chantilly mushrooms, tomatoes, brioche toast etc) while gentle soul jazz played in the background and toddled of full to the gills but, next time will certainly take in the reputedly excellent all you can eat brunch that is formidable to say the very least.