NB: the chicest guide in town

Bonsoir Naomi, go Gwyneth, mwah, mwah Madge. Last weekend everyone was in Paris for the couture shows, sweetie.

Of course, till very recently Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and JFK could have got together for a reunion in the Eiffel Tower and it still wouldn't have quickened the Paris pulse. Bar the Hotel Costes, the French capital was flatlining deader than a dodo. But since winning the World Cup and knocking spots off our Y2K, Paris has set its sights on London's crown of cool, and there's a whole new raft of clubs, restaurants, bars and shops.

Luckily, the first edition of a new travel guide has arrived to sort out les hommes from les gar?ons. Nota Bene is a travel guide whose reviewers are anonymous. "Who writes it?" the bag designer Anya Hindmarch asks me. "It's like the Official Secrets Act trying to find out. Whoever they are, they are my new bedtime companion (whether they like it or not)." Each month the book takes a different city, and gives the low-down on hotels, restaurants, shops and spas, with a snippet of gossip mixed in. Aimed at the young and fashion-conscious, Note Bene can be as bitchy as it likes about everywhere from the Ritz to the hauteest cuisine. And it is: Le Bristol "needs a complete makeover - not just from a beautician ... but from a reputable cosmetic surgeon." The Hotel Meurice is a "shrine to bad taste, we loathe it," and the Hotel de Crillon bar is "particularly naff ". NB is not one to mince its mots and, as a result, has become an It girl's bible - Tamara Mellon, Tania Bryer, Louise Kennedy and Rory Bremner are all converts.

In Paris to test the guide out, I head off to the recommended Hotel Plaza Ath?n?e for a drink - stopping for a makeover at the Viseart beauty bar on the way (you can step off the Eurostar on a Friday and have fun in this beauty playground till 11pm). Apparently, the Plaza could rival the fashionable Hotel Costes if the bar, newly designed by Patrick Jouin, can pull in the crowd.

Sure enough, the place is crammed with a collection of chicks who could have fallen out of the pages of W magazine ... or squeezed between them. At midnight, the doorman asks why we're leaving: "Naomi's coming!" Reason enough for me, I say, as I tread on Miss Campbell's toe. We're advised to go to the très exclusif Matisse bar. This highlighted one leetle problem with NB - if you're after tiny places that get really good round 3am, you won't find them here.

We then check into the brand new Pershing Hall, which NB trumpets "without doubt, the best designer/boutique/hip hotel in Paris." Designed by Andrée Puttman (who madeover Concorde, Karl Lagerfeld's office and the Morgan hotel in New York), the pièce de résistance is the 115ft-high vertical garden in the courtyard, composed entirely of tropical plants from southeast Asia. But the bar is full of girls who look as if they're on Footballers' Wives and our room, at more than £250, makes my loo appear big.

However, NB is usually bang on the money. It calls La Maison Blanche "arguably the most stunning contemporary restaurant in Paris" and by chance we arrive on their bi-monthly club night - one of the hottest parties in Paris.

Prices, however, don't seem to be an issue for the NB reader: as I discovered to my cost, she apparently doesn't need to be warned about a bill for £23 for one measly glass of champagne and a Heineken at the Ritz. It's at times like this that you want to reach for a copy of the Rough Guide.

So, what's hot in Paris this spring?
Destination guide: France