The Right Bank palace hotels are not in question. This is a quieter list — the addresses our curators book for themselves.
Paris is the only city in the world where the hotel is a verb. One does not simply stay at the Ritz; one Ritzes. The palace hotels of the Right Bank — Le Bristol, the Ritz, the Plaza Athénée, the Crillon — are not in question, and we book them often. But there is a second list, longer and quieter, that the seasoned concierge keeps in a different drawer.
These are the houses our own curators book when they cross the Channel for a weekend. None of them are secret. All of them are under-discussed.
Saint James Paris
The only château in central Paris, set behind a gate in the 16th arrondissement, with a library bar that smells of leather and old maps. The renovation under Laura Gonzalez restored the Napoleonic eccentricity that the previous decade had quietly sanded away. Ask for a junior suite on the garden side. Avoid the rooms above the bar on a Friday.
Hôtel de Crillon, Rosewood
Yes, it is a palace hotel — but the conversion under Rosewood has made it the most contemporary of the grandes dames. The Brasserie d'Aumont is now where Parisians actually eat lunch, which is the highest compliment one can pay a hotel restaurant in this city. Book a Grands Appartements suite if the budget permits; otherwise, the standard Deluxe rooms facing the courtyard are the value play of the 8th.
Hôtel Lutetia
The only true palace hotel on the Left Bank. The post-renovation lobby is, frankly, a touch too bright — but the rooms are extraordinary, the spa is the largest in Paris, and the location at Sèvres-Babylone puts you within walking distance of the Bon Marché, the Musée Rodin and the best croissant in the 7th (Boulangerie Utopie's outpost on rue de Sèvres).
Le Pavillon de la Reine
On the Place des Vosges, in a 17th-century mansion that almost no one outside Paris has heard of. Twenty-six rooms, a hidden courtyard, no restaurant — which is the point. You eat at L'Ambroisie next door, or at Benoît around the corner, and you return to a hotel that feels like a friend's pied-à-terre.
J.K. Place Paris
The newest of the five, opened on rue de Vaugirard in 2021. The Florentine sensibility translates beautifully to Paris: timber, linen, slightly too many lamps. The breakfast room overlooks the Jardin du Luxembourg from a height that the larger hotels cannot match. Forty rooms, all of them quiet.
How to choose between them
If it is your first trip in five years, take the Crillon. If it is your tenth, take the Saint James. If you are travelling for the food, the Lutetia. If you are travelling for the silence, the Pavillon de la Reine. If you are travelling for the view of the garden in the morning, J.K. Place — and ask for a room on the fifth floor, on the corner.
