L'homme de Rio Boutique Hotel

Nina the dog is awesome.

L'homme de Rio is a nice enough boutique hotel and it does have a decent hill top view. There is a refreshing pool up there and the terrace itself is in reasonable shape. However... Hill top in Rio means one sure thing. Favela. I will return to this point. The view is cool but of the distant ocean horizon and not the action on the beach of Ipanema. It's centrality is dubious at best and you won't be walking to the beach. The roof top bar experience would be better with a barman around to take an order. In our standard double room the decor was ok but we had to start raising complaints when our balcony sliding doors didn't lock and the safe was broken too like a bad joke. On the flip side, the staff are great and were very understanding when we raised our original complaints. They upgraded us to a very spacious suite where the safe did work. (Balcony doors still didn't lock though). They were also were extremely genuine and understanding when we decided it was not the hotel for us and checked out the next morning. They refunded us the remaining nights without complication or resistance. The reason we left was simple. The hotel sits on a main artery back up to the favela it's shares walls with. During the day our taxi's hesitantly drove us up the long narrow slope but at night... Forget it. We had to beg our taxi at 3 different points up the twisty-turny street so that he wouldn't leave us to the "goodwill" of the locals. Do not go here if you looking for a carefree short stay beach/city life holiday. It won't be carefree. Do stay here if you like a little spice. It is on the edge of the favela and if you dig a little danger this is the place for you. No irony, it's cool enough.