Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo

The Hotel

The Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo opened on 1 January 1864, commissioned by Société des Bains de Mer founder François Blanc to provide accommodation worthy of the patrons he was importing to the brand-new Monte-Carlo Casino across the square. The two buildings, casino and hotel, were always conceived as a single proposition, and they still operate that way: SBM owns and runs both, the square between them is the principality's centre of gravity, and the entrance of the Hôtel de Paris remains the address where the historic Monaco still recognises itself. Charles Garnier, the architect of the Paris Opera, designed the casino's expansion in 1879; the Hôtel de Paris received its successive grand façades by Henri Schmit and Édouard-Jean Niermans in the Belle Époque years that followed. By 1900 the property was the recognised flagship of European resort hotels, and it has held the position uninterrupted for more than 120 years.

Between 2014 and 2018 the SBM closed the property in phases and ran a four-year, €240 million renovation under Paris-based interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon and the firm Affine Design. The historic façade and the principal salons were preserved and restored; the room count was reduced from the previous 191 to 207 (counter-intuitively the room reduction came from enlarging a high proportion of the smaller rooms, with new categories added at the top); a private inner courtyard garden was carved out where one had never existed; and the rooftop was opened as a new circle of Diamond Suites, six top-floor units that include private terraces with retractable roofs and direct sightlines over the casino, the harbour, and the Mediterranean. The reopening in 2019 was the most expensive grand-hotel renovation in continental Europe at the time and re-set the contemporary palace standard.

Le Louis XV-Alain Ducasse à l'Hôtel de Paris is the hotel's gastronomic restaurant, the dining room that earned Ducasse his third Michelin star in 1990 and made him, at thirty-three, the youngest chef ever to hold three stars at the time. The room has held three stars uninterrupted since. Le Grill on the eighth floor opens its retractable roof to the sky and runs a Mediterranean menu with one Michelin star; Ômer is the Mediterranean-Levantine room overseen by Ducasse with a more relaxed brief; Le Salon Bellevue and Le Bar Américain handle the all-day and cocktail trade respectively. The Cave, the property's historic wine cellar, is the largest hotel wine cellar in the world by published bottle count (around 600,000 bottles, the result of more than a century of methodical SBM acquisitions). Tours are available with the head sommelier.

The 207 rooms and suites range from Classic Rooms (now from 25 square metres after the renovation, up from a tighter pre-2014 footprint) through Junior Suites, Deluxe Suites, the Prince Rainier III Suite, the Princess Grace Suite, and the new top-floor Diamond Suites. The Princess Grace Suite, a duplex with a private staircase, original 1960s furnishings restored, and a private terrace facing the Casino, books a year ahead for the Grand Prix and Opera Gala weeks. SBM Cercle privileges include preferential access to all SBM venues (the Casino, Le Café de Paris, the Beach Club at Monte-Carlo Bay, the Thermes Marins spa), which is what locks the Hôtel de Paris guest into the broader Monte-Carlo experience.

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