So where do you fancy going this weekend, I asked nonchalantly. Paris, Barcelona, Havana? My lady Claire is mad about Miró and plumped for Catalonia’s city by the sea, so we drove east out of Glasgow and an hour later we were there. Kind of.

Barcelona has been relocated, or rather recreated, behind the Georgian façade of an erstwhile insurance building in Edinburgh, along with 17 other cities, in a new boutique hotel and bar complex called Le Monde. Each of the rooms is designed to create an illusion of being in the city named on the door — so Paris looks like a Belle Epoque bordello, and Milan is decorated with portraits of fashion models.

So much for the hype. The reality is that the rooms are fun, funky and ridiculously expensive. The cheapest start at £275 a night, rising to £475 for the questionable pleasure of sleeping in a room that looks like a New York brownstone.

For these prices I expect a welcoming bottle of chilled champagne, fresh flowers and a parking attendant. Instead we get French table wine, four chocolates and advice on where to find a parking meter.

Barcelona is small, and dominated by a giant extending lamp that hovers ominously over the bed like a dentist’s drill. But the room is cosy, with shaded light from turret windows and colourful Miró reproductions, and we like a big mirror in the style of Gaudí. The boss loves the bed and goose down pillows. It’s like sleeping on a cloud, she says.

A TV screen and CD/DVD player are mounted on the wall, because there’s no room anywhere else, and bedside shelves are barely big enough for a watch. At least the modern Victorian bath has room for two, with a traditional ceiling rose shower. But don’t dare walk off with the Molton Brown toiletries — a notice warns guests that they are “for use within the room”.

Entering the Paris brasserie in dark jacket and smart frock, we were over-dressed. A casual crowd was quaffing around an ornate bar in retro-Metro style, reflected in Art Deco mirrors. So we should have seen the drink-fuelled Romeo coming who hassled Claire when I went to book a table.

The menus were limited to standard fare, with a modest wine list, and increasingly loud music rising from a singles melée in the Vienna bar below did not make for an intimate dining experience.

A confusing monde, this. Top-end room prices in a rarefied ambience and cheap, decent nosh in a lively bar scene next door. The Tokyo night club was buzzing with hip sounds and Japanese animated cartoons, and looks like becoming party central.

If you have money to burn, this is a fun place to do it. If you don’t, sleep somewhere else and come for the cocktails.

Gavin Bell

Bottom line: Gavin Bell paid £275 for a double room with breakfast.

Need to know: Le Monde (0131-270 3900, www.lemondehotel.co.uk), 16 George Street, Edinburgh EH2.

Sampling the fare: Standard smoked salmon, lamb cutlets and Aberdeen Angus fillet, and range of pastas and bar nosh, well presented. Dinner for two, including wine, £63.

Access all areas? No.

Room: 8 out of 10.

Food: 7 out of 10.

Service: 7 out of 10.

Value: 3 out of 10.

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