JOST

A hybrid house built on Joy Of Staying Together

JOST is the first address of a brand founded by Alban Ruggiero after years spent inside Hilton and Accor, and the name states the intention: Joy Of Staying Together. The format sits between a hotel and a hostel, with private rooms and dormitories under the same roof, and it treats the public spaces as the main event rather than as a lobby to cross. The building announces it from the street, a contemporary block of vertical concrete louvres, and continues inside with dark wood joinery, raw concrete and terrazzo floors.

Private rooms and privatised dorms under one roof

The offer is unusually wide. Signature rooms hold two guests in fifteen square metres, The 3 of Us adds a pull out bed, Collection sets a freestanding bathtub against blue tiles, and Oversize spreads a double and two bunks across thirty square metres for a family of four. Rainshowers come as standard, along with a speaker or a record player in the room. The dormitories are engineered rather than improvised, sleeping four, six or eight behind privacy curtains, with individual lamps, sockets and secure lockers, a shared kitchen alongside, and mixed or ladies only options. A group can take a whole dorm for itself.

The eighth floor: mosaic pool and the Nonna Gioia spritz bar

The rooftop is the signature of the house. A mosaic swimming pool runs along the terrace, open through the warm months, with loungers against a terracotta wall and a colonnade framing the panorama across the roofs of Bordeaux. Nonna Gioia holds the other half, an Italian leaning bar built around spritz in its classic and reworked forms, with burrata and sharing platters in the evening. It opens every day from late afternoon and fills with locals as much as with guests.

Lieu Chéri, coworking by day and cabaret by night

On the first floor, behind its own street entrance, Lieu Chéri covers three hundred square metres that work as a coworking room during the day and as a stage once the light goes down. The programming rotates monthly across cabaret acts, drag performances, stand up and DJ sets, and the house adds live sport on screen and games nights. Downstairs, the restaurant serves a world kitchen that runs from Levantine to Indian and Asian plates. Between the two, an evening here becomes an outing rather than a fallback.

Beside Saint Jean station, in the Amédée Saint-Germain quarter

The address is 5 promenade des Cheminots, in the quarter rebuilt around Saint Jean station. The station is a few minutes on foot, trams C and D stop at the door and several bus routes run alongside, which puts the whole city within reach without a car. Saint Michel and its Sunday market are a walk along the river, the quays and Place de la Bourse a little beyond, and the vineyards are an easy train ride out. Parking, luggage storage, lockers and a round the clock desk cover the practical side, and check in runs late into the night.

Why we selected it

We kept JOST because nothing else in the city combines a rooftop pool, a cabaret and a choice of bed that runs from a dorm bunk to a family room. It is our recommendation for younger travellers, for groups who want to stay together under one roof, and for anyone who would rather find the evening downstairs than go looking for it.