Paris, France · Palace Hotel · ★★★★★
Ritz Paris
The address that defined luxury hospitality. 15 Place Vendôme, since 1898.
The address that defined luxury hospitality. 15 Place Vendôme, since 1898.
"César Ritz opened the doors in 1898 and the bar still bears Hemingway's name, the Paris hotel against which Paris hotels are measured."
Why this rank, The Ritz Paris has held the 15 Place Vendôme address since César Ritz opened the doors on June 1, 1898. The 2012-2016 four-year renovation, the largest in the property's history, returned all 142 rooms and suites to current Palace specification while preserving the historic interiors that defined the building's identity. The Coco Chanel Suite (the suite the designer occupied 1934-1971) and the Imperial Suite remain the property's defining accommodations. The Bar Hemingway remains one of Paris's most-historically-significant hotel bars, with the program of head bartender Colin Field running until his 2023 retirement. L'Espadon, the property's two-Michelin-star restaurant, operates with chef Eugénie Béziat in the position since 2024. The Ritz Bar runs the casual program. The Ritz Escoffier cooking school continues. Place Vendôme outside the door is the Cartier-Van Cleef-Boucheron corridor. Best for anniversaries, proposals, and any Paris stay where the address itself is the trip. Not the choice for low-key visits.
Best room: Coco Chanel Suite, third-floor maisonette, the designer's actual 1934-1971 residence.
"The Ritz is not a hotel. It is a statement about what the world can be at its best. César Ritz opened these doors in 1898 and every subsequent attempt at luxury has been measured against this place."
There is no hotel in the world that carries the same symbolic weight as the Ritz Paris. César Ritz opened 15 Place Vendôme in 1898 with a radical premise: that the wealthy deserved private bathrooms, electric lighting, and service that anticipated needs rather than simply responding to them. He succeeded beyond reason. The word "ritzy" entered the English language as a result. The hotel shaped the very vocabulary of luxury.
The 2016 renovation, led by design firm Thierry Despont after a four-year closure, preserved the Louis XVI interiors while installing the technical infrastructure of a contemporary palace. The result is a hotel that feels genuinely historic without the creaking that word sometimes implies. One hundred and forty-two rooms and suites, the largest of which, the Imperial Suite, runs to four bedrooms and a private dining room. The smallest rooms are not especially large, but they are finished with the kind of obsessive detail that justifies the rate.
The Hemingway Bar needs no introduction to anyone who has read about Paris or drunk in it. The legend is earned: a serious cocktail programme, intimate scale, and the kind of barman who remembers your order. The Ritz Bar is more formal. Espadon serves classic French haute cuisine under a painted ceiling and two Michelin stars. The garden is one of Paris's great hidden terraces.
The Ritz Club spa and pool is the finest in Paris, a 17-metre underground pool lined with mosaic tiles, flanked by frescoes, and genuinely hushed. Access is reserved for hotel guests. The gym is equipped to a standard that few palace hotels match. The spa treatment menu is extensive without being frivolous.
The address itself is the amenity. Place Vendôme holds Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chanel Fine Jewellery, and Boucheron within a two-minute walk. The Tuileries gardens are five minutes. The Louvre is ten. This is not a hotel you leave to explore Paris. This is a hotel from which Paris is best understood.
The Ritz is one of the most iconic honeymoon hotels on earth, and it earns the reputation. Request a room overlooking Place Vendôme for the light at dusk, or a garden-facing suite for absolute quiet. The butler service means your every need is handled before you articulate it. Book dinner at Espadon on arrival night, the table by the window, the one facing the garden, is as romantic as a first night in Paris can be.
The Ritz has facilitated proposals for over a century and handles them with extraordinary discretion. The concierge team can arrange champagne in the pool area, a private table at Espadon, or a customised jewellery consultation at Cartier on Place Vendôme, literally next door. If you propose here and she says no, it wasn't the hotel's fault.
For significant anniversaries, the ones that warrant genuine ceremony, the Ritz is the correct choice in Paris. The hotel's suite upgrade programme for returning guests is generous. The service memory (what you ordered last time, how you take your coffee) is maintained across visits. The Ritz remembers, even when you think it shouldn't need to.
Rates shown are approximate. Verify at time of booking.
The King's Suite
Monthly. No noise.
Editorial · #1 on the Top 20 Paris Hotels 2026 list
The Ritz Paris earns the #1 Paris position because no other Paris hotel carries an equivalent layering of address, history, and continuous operation. Place Vendôme has been the working luxury-jewelry corridor of Paris since the 18th century; the Ritz has been the hotel anchor of that corridor since 1898. The four-year 2012-2016 renovation rebuilt the rooms while preserving the heritage public spaces, which is the right answer for a property where the heritage is the asset.
For Paris visitors specifically, the Ritz is the address calibrated for milestone trips, proposals, anniversaries, fashion-week stays, milestone birthdays. The 142-room scale means the property runs with a staff-to-guest ratio that approximates the Palace floor (1.5:1 at full occupancy). The Bar Hemingway and the Ritz Escoffier cooking school are working assets, not museum exhibits, both operate daily and both serve hotel guests first.