The Ritz Paris

When César Ritz opened his hotel in 1898, he invented much of what we now take for granted. The ensuite bathroom. A telephone in every room. The idea that a hotel could be a stage as much as a shelter. More than a century later, the Ritz is still writing that script.

The restoration that ran from 2012 to 2016 was so thorough that the hotel effectively closed and rebuilt itself behind its Louis XVI façade. What came back isn't a museum. It's softer, brighter and far more comfortable than the grande dame it replaced.

The Rooms

The Coco Chanel Suite, where the designer lived for 34 years, is the one everyone asks for. But even the standard rooms speak fluent Ritz: swagged curtains, marble bathrooms, and hand-embroidered linen turned down each night beside a Ritz-blue box of chocolates.

The real showpiece is the Grand Jardin, a private courtyard garden where breakfast in warm weather feels borrowed from a film.

One hotel, several versions of Paris

The Ritz is not a single mood. Bar Vendôme behaves like a handsome Parisian brasserie beneath its glass roof; Salon Proust turns tea into an upholstered ritual; the Grand Jardin supplies green silence behind Place Vendôme; Bar Hemingway compresses the mythology into a small, coveted room. The fashionable mistake is to spend the stay chasing the famous bar stool. The wiser pleasure is to move among these different registers and notice how little of the hotel feels like a corridor between them.

Espadon has also entered a new chapter under chef Eugénie Béziat, whose cooking draws on Mediterranean and African memories rather than reenacting Escoffier. It currently holds a Michelin star. That evolution is important: a hotel so burdened by legend survives only by allowing new talent to alter the conversation. Dinner requires planning; a spontaneous lunch at Bar Vendôme may reveal the house more naturally.

The room hierarchy is unusually consequential

The 142 keys vary from 35-square-metre Superior Rooms to historic Prestige Suites with names and narratives of their own. A lower category still brings marble, fine fabrics and serious housekeeping, but outlook changes everything. Place Vendôme carries theatre and traffic; the Grand Jardin offers romance and relative calm; certain high rooms frame the Opéra or Eiffel Tower. Ask for a view in plain language rather than trusting a category name to explain it.

The famous Coco Chanel connection can obscure equally compelling suites devoted to Hemingway, Chopin, Windsor and other former guests. Unless the biography is the reason for travelling, space and orientation should win. The most expensive room is not automatically the most comfortable for a particular stay, and heavily decorated historic suites can feel more ceremonial than restful.

The case for staying—and the case against

Service is formal but should never feel stiff; the best version anticipates without narrating its anticipation. The Ritz Club & Spa, with its painted-sky pool, sauna and steam room, gives rainy afternoons a persuasive destination. Yet the address can become its own world, and guests who never leave risk experiencing Paris as upholstery. The Tuileries, Palais Royal and Louvre are close enough to restore proportion before breakfast.

Value here is emotional rather than mathematical. Newer palace hotels offer larger entry rooms and more visible technology. The Ritz offers the original grammar of grand hospitality, maintained at extraordinary cost. Book it for an anniversary, a first or final night, or because Place Vendôme has occupied the imagination for years—not because a ranking said it was compulsory.

A note on access and ritual

Place Vendôme is central on foot and awkward by car. Fashion-week closures, security and one-way streets can make the final few hundred metres longer than expected, so airport timing should come from the concierge rather than a map. Once inside, residents should distinguish between public rituals and private pleasures. Tea and Bar Hemingway are famous; an early swim beneath the Ritz Club's painted sky or coffee in the garden can feel more genuinely privileged because neither requires an audience.

The Verdict

Some hotels chase the future. The Ritz Paris perfects the past. If you want to understand where the whole idea of the luxury hotel came from, you stay here, and you stay at least two nights.