The 7 Iconic Palace Hotels of Paris

France operates an official hotel designation that sits above five stars. It is called Palace, it is awarded by ministerial decision on the recommendation of Atout France, and it is now granted for three years at a time rather than five. In June 2026 the current collection was published: thirty-three hotels across the country, thirteen of them in Paris.

That list is worth understanding before you book, because it does not match the popular one. Bvlgari, Cheval Blanc and Fouquet's were promoted for the first time in 2026. The Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome and Mandarin Oriental's Paris property were removed, the first demotions in the label's history. And the Ritz, the house most people name first, does not appear on it at all.

What follows is the canon: seven grand houses that built the Paris idea of a palace hotel. For each one, what it is actually for, where it sits, and - because most readers will visit rather than stay - how to get through the door without booking a room.

What the Palace label means, and why the Ritz is not on it

The distinction was created in 2010 to give France a formal category above five stars, for a handful of hotels that had long shaped the country's reputation but had nowhere left to be ranked. Atout France assesses history, location, architecture, dining, service and environmental policy, and the title is now reviewed every three years, which is why the 2026 edition both promoted and demoted properties.

The Ritz's absence is not a verdict on the hotel. It missed the earliest rounds while it was closed for a restoration lasting roughly four years, and trade press reports that it has since chosen not to put itself forward, preferring to rely on its own name rather than a state label. Treat the official list as a useful shortlist with one famous asterisk, not as a league table. Several hotels among the official thirteen - Le Royal Monceau, La Reserve, The Peninsula, the Lutetia - are serious addresses that simply sit outside this particular seven.

1. Ritz Paris - Place Vendome

The hotel that invented the mythology, and still trades on it more successfully than any of its rivals. Coco Chanel lived here for more than three decades, and Hemingway drank in the small room that now carries his name. The reopening in 2016, after a gut restoration, returned the building to a deliberately classical register rather than modernising it.

If dining is your reason for coming, calibrate. Espadon was awarded a Michelin star in March 2024 under head chef Eugenie Beziat - a single star, against six spread across the George V. The Ritz's case is atmosphere, not the kitchen. Bar Hemingway seats only around twenty-five people, takes no reservations and typically opens in the early evening; arrive within a few minutes of opening or expect to wait, sometimes an hour at peak. Cocktails run to roughly EUR 35 or more. The Salon Proust serves tea in a panelled room of antique books, usually from mid-afternoon, from around EUR 68 per person with champagne versions costing considerably more. Bar Vendome, in the courtyard, is the easiest room in the house to get into and the one most people overlook.

For: travellers who want the Paris of legend.

2. Hotel de Crillon - Place de la Concorde

An eighteenth-century building commissioned under Louis XV, converted to a hotel in 1909, and closed for a restoration running from 2013 to 2017. It occupies one of the most theatrical positions in the city, facing the obelisk on Concorde. Karl Lagerfeld designed two of its grand apartments before his death, and they remain the most photographed rooms in the building.

At ground level it is the most approachable of the seven. The old Brasserie d'Aumont was rethought in January 2023 as Nonos & Comestibles, by Paul Pairet of Ultraviolet in Shanghai: Nonos is a French-style grill built around large cuts of meat meant to be shared, while Comestibles alongside it works as part canteen, part grocery counter, selling seafood, charcuterie, smoked fish and cheeses - a considerably softer financial proposition than a tasting menu elsewhere on this list. Bar Les Ambassadeurs looks out towards the obelisk, keeps a champagne list running to well over a hundred references, and programmes live music; expect to pay somewhere in the region of EUR 30 upwards for a cocktail. It is a ten-minute walk from here to the Musee de l'Orangerie and the Jeu de Paume, both inside the Tuileries, which makes the Crillon the natural lunch or early-evening stop on a museum day rather than a destination in itself.

For: lovers of history and architecture.

3. Hotel Plaza Athenee - Avenue Montaigne

Opened in 1913 on the couture avenue, and the red awnings with their geraniums are a fixture of Paris fashion photography. Part of the Dorchester Collection. The address is the point: Avenue Montaigne and the streets around it hold the flagship houses, and if serious shopping is the trip, no other hotel on this list saves you as much walking.

Jean Imbert au Plaza Athenee won a Michelin star within a few months of opening in 2022 and has held it since. The genuinely distinctive thing here, though, is seasonal: the interior courtyard, La Cour Jardin, is planted and green in summer and converts into an alpine chalet with a private ice rink for roughly the end of November through January, with a set dinner of raclette and charcuterie starting somewhere around EUR 225 per person and including rink time. It books out; if you want it, reserve weeks ahead. The Palais Galliera, the city's fashion museum, is a short walk away and typically opens Tuesday to Sunday with a late closing one evening a week - check before you go, as its programme runs in blocks with gaps between exhibitions.

For: fashion devotees and romantics.

4. Le Meurice - Rue de Rivoli

The oldest of the group, trading on the Rivoli frontage since the 1830s and facing the Tuileries across the street. Salvador Dali stayed for a month a year over roughly three decades, and the hotel has never stopped mentioning it. The interiors take their cue from Versailles, with a Philippe Starck intervention layered over them.

Restaurant le Meurice Alain Ducasse holds two Michelin stars, with Amaury Bouhours as executive chef under Ducasse. The more useful address for most visitors is the patisserie: Cedric Grolet's boutique inside the hotel concentrates on his sculpted trompe-l'oeil fruit, each one painted to pass for a lemon or a hazelnut. His separate shop near the Opera is the one with the notorious queue - reports of well over a hundred people waiting are routine, and it typically opens mid-morning and closes early evening, shut two days a week. If you are short on time, the hotel boutique is the calmer of the two and the pastries are the ones he is known for. Tea at Le Meurice costs around EUR 60 and is among the better-value ways onto this list.

For: classicists with a taste for art.

5. Le Bristol - Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore

Open since 1925, occupying most of a block near the Elysee Palace, and one of the first hotels in France to receive the Palace distinction when the label was new. It holds two things the others cannot match: a planted interior courtyard garden of well over a thousand square metres, which is a genuine rarity at this density of city, and a sixth-floor pool built like a yacht deck in teak.

Correct one thing you may have read elsewhere. Epicure, the three-star restaurant, is no longer Eric Frechon's. After about twenty-five years he stepped back in 2024, and Arnaud Faye, a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, took the kitchen and has held all three stars through the 2025 and 2026 guides with lighter, more vegetal cooking. The hotel cat has changed too: Fa-raon retired in 2021 to the home of one of the hotel's own receptionists, and his son Socrate, a Birman born that June, now works the marble staircase and the bar armchairs. If you want a low-commitment visit, the hot chocolate served here has a following of its own and costs somewhere around EUR 19.

For: true gourmets.

6. Four Seasons George V - off the Champs-Elysees

A 1928 Art Deco building, restored and reopened by Four Seasons at the end of the 1990s. In the 2026 Michelin guide it again held six stars across three restaurants: three at Le Cinq under Christian Le Squer, who has now kept that rating for a decade, plus distinctions at L'Orangerie and Le George. By the guide's count, no other hotel in the city concentrates as much.

The flowers are the other reason to come, and they cost nothing to see. Jeff Leatham has been artistic director here for more than twenty-five years; his team rebuilds the lobby installations roughly every three weeks, working from stock trucked in from Dutch growers, some of whom plant for this hotel specifically. Walking into the lobby to look is accepted behaviour and is the single best free thing on this entire list. Go in December, when the Christmas installation is up.

For: those who want flawless service above all.

7. Shangri-La Paris - Iena, across the river

The former residence of Prince Roland Bonaparte, Napoleon's grand-nephew, converted to a hotel in 2010. It sits in the sixteenth arrondissement on the opposite bank from the Eiffel Tower, which is the whole proposition.

Here is the one piece of advice on this page that will cost you real money if you ignore it. The tower view is not universal. Of roughly a hundred rooms and suites, something like forty per cent of the rooms and sixty per cent of the suites face the tower directly. Booking the cheapest category and hoping is how people end up paying palace rates for a courtyard. Get the view confirmed in writing, or book elsewhere. Shang Palace is listed by Michelin as the only starred Chinese restaurant in the city, which is a genuine reason to eat here rather than a house boast. The Palais de Tokyo and the Musee d'Art Moderne de Paris are a few minutes away on foot, and Trocadero, for the postcard view of the tower, is a short walk uphill.

For: the ones who came for that view.

Six of the seven are a single walk

This is the thing nobody tells you: these hotels are not scattered. Six of the seven form a rough line running west, and you can walk the whole thing in under an hour without stopping.

Start at Le Meurice on Rivoli. The Ritz is five to eight minutes north through the arcades to Place Vendome. Concorde and the Crillon are about ten minutes west. From there it is roughly twelve minutes up the Faubourg Saint-Honore to Le Bristol, another fifteen or so southwest to the Plaza Athenee on Montaigne, and eight more to the George V. Only the Shangri-La breaks the chain, sitting about twenty minutes further on across the river.

If you would rather not walk it, Metro line 1 threads most of the route, running under Rivoli through Tuileries, Concorde and on to George V. Line 9 covers the last leg, linking Alma-Marceau to Iena for the Shangri-La.

The entry ticket: getting inside without a room

The original advice holds and is worth repeating plainly. A room is not the only way in. Afternoon tea or a drink at the bar gets you the interiors, the service and the atmosphere for a small fraction of a night's rate - figure on roughly EUR 60 to EUR 70 for tea at the more reasonable houses, up to around EUR 100 for versions with champagne, and somewhere in the EUR 30 to EUR 40 range for a cocktail.

Book tea in advance, particularly at weekends. Dress is smart casual almost everywhere and trainers are the usual sticking point. Bars are generally the easier target than restaurants and several open in the early evening. And the George V lobby, as noted, asks nothing at all.

When in the year this works, and when it does not

Avoid the fashion weeks. Womenswear falls in late September into early October and again in late February into early March, with haute couture in late January and early July. Rates climb hard and restaurant tables effectively vanish.

August cuts both ways. Room rates soften noticeably because the city empties, but the kitchens take their annual holidays and a starred restaurant you have flown for may simply be shut. Check the individual restaurant rather than the hotel - they close independently.

January and February outside couture week are the cheapest window and the one to target if the room is the point. Late November through January buys you the Plaza Athenee's rink and the December installations at the George V. Late spring is when Le Bristol's garden and rooftop pool justify themselves, and when the terraces are worth having.

What to skip

Do not attempt all seven in a day. You will queue, rush and enjoy none of it; three in an afternoon is a good pace and two is better.

Skip the three-star dinner if the room is what you came for - it can easily double the cost of the trip. Skip Bar Hemingway entirely unless you can be there when the doors open. Skip the Champs-Elysees itself, whatever your hotel's marketing says about the address; the interesting streets are Montaigne and the Faubourg Saint-Honore. And unless you are a completist, skip the Ritz's restaurant in favour of its bars, which is where its reputation actually lives.

Roughly what it costs

Entry-level doubles across these houses typically start somewhere around EUR 1,200 to EUR 1,800 a night, with the Ritz generally sitting above that range, and suites moving past EUR 3,000 quickly. Expect rates to climb further during fashion weeks and through the autumn.

If that is out of range, the arithmetic of the entry ticket is worth restating: tea for two at Le Meurice costs about as much as a decent dinner elsewhere in the city, and buys you the same room the guests are sitting in.

Tip: the official Palace list changed in 2026 and will change again, so check it rather than trusting an older article - including this one. It is published by Atout France and reviewed on a three-year cycle.