The Ritz Paris: What 150 Years of Palace Hotel Excellence Looks Like Today

The Ritz Paris opened its doors at 15 Place Vendôme on 1 June 1898, the creation of César Ritz and Auguste Escoffier. In the 127 years since, it has accumulated a biography of extraordinary density: Coco Chanel lived in its Imperial Suite for 34 years; Hemingway claimed to have liberated its bar in August 1944 and named it after himself; Proust wrote parts of In Search of Lost Time in a suite on the second floor; Princess Diana spent her last evening at the Ritz before her death in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in 1997. This accumulation of history — real, mythologised, and somewhere between the two — is itself a form of value that no amount of renovation expenditure can manufacture from scratch, and it is one of the primary reasons that the Ritz Paris occupies a position in the hierarchy of hotels that is qualitatively different from any property whose excellence is merely a function of its specification and service.

The four-year, €400 million renovation completed in 2016 under the direction of Thierry Despont and the ownership of the Al Fayed family established a physical standard that remains, in 2025, the most fully achieved in Paris. The 142 rooms and suites — enlarged from their pre-renovation footprints, replumbed with the infrastructure for contemporary building management, and redecorated to Despont's vision of an enriched Louis XVI vocabulary — are among the most beautiful hotel spaces in the world. The Imperial Suite, at the corner of the Place Vendôme, occupies 1,200 square metres across a floor that was formerly a less significant collection of rooms; its drawing rooms, dining room, and master bedroom suite now constitute a private apartment of the highest palatial order, decorated with original period furniture, an art collection that includes several significant 18th-century paintings, and bathroom fixtures in hand-patinated brass by a Parisian artisan who has worked exclusively for the Ritz for three generations.

The Ritz Paris Spa, which occupies the basement of the Place Vendôme wing, is one of the finest hotel spas in the world by any credible assessment. Its 1,800-square-metre footprint incorporates a 17-metre swimming pool under a barrel-vaulted ceiling, a hammam, a sauna, and a suite of treatment rooms that deploy a beauty programme developed in partnership with Chanel — an association that is unique in the hotel world and that delivers treatments based on Chanel's N°1 de Chanel skincare line using protocols designed by the brand's Institut de Beauté. The pool's design, by Despont, references the Roman bath tradition in its materials (travertine, mosaic, gilded bronze) and its proportions, creating an atmosphere that is simultaneously ancient and contemporary in the way that the best Paris interiors achieve.