Hôtel Métropole Monte-Carlo

The Hotel

The Hôtel Métropole Monte-Carlo opened in 1886 on the gardens of Cardinal Hugues de Loubenx de Verdalle, between Avenue de la Madone and the SBM-developed Casino district. The original Belle Époque building was conceived as the more residential alternative to the SBM grand-hotel programme, an independent, owner-operated five-star a hundred and fifty metres west of the Place du Casino. The hotel changed hands repeatedly through the twentieth century before its current owners (the family-owned Greek Metropole Group) commissioned the architect Jacques Garcia to lead a comprehensive top-to-bottom redesign in the early 2000s. The redesigned hotel reopened in May 2004 with 146 rooms (later reduced to 125 after a 2018 reconfiguration that produced larger room footprints) and a unified Garcia-signature interior in the boudoir-luxury vocabulary, heavy silks, brass, oxblood reds, the late-eighteenth-century French aesthetic Garcia had developed at the Hôtel Costes in Paris.

The 125 rooms (including 49 suites) are arranged across the historic 1886 envelope and the gardens-side wing. Standard Classic and Deluxe rooms run 30, 42 square metres; Junior Suites and Suites Carré d'Or are larger; the named units, the Suite Présidentielle, the Suite Carré d'Or, the Penthouse Suite at the top of the building, are the headline bookings. The Penthouse Suite is the editorial flagship, occupying the entire top floor with a private rooftop terrace, two bedrooms, and the largest single private suite footprint of any Monaco hotel. Garcia's interior vocabulary is consistent across every category, the rooms read as small Parisian apartments rather than hotel rooms, with the textiles, lighting, and antique-style furniture composed for evening rather than daytime light.

Joël Robuchon Monte-Carlo opened at the Métropole in 2004 as the first Riviera location of Robuchon's atelier-format dining concept; the restaurant has held two Michelin stars since 2005 and remains under Robuchon's posthumous group operation. The Yoshi Monte-Carlo opened in 2008 as Robuchon's Japanese counterpart on the same floor, one Michelin star since 2010 (the only Michelin Japanese on the Riviera coast). Lobby Bar & Lounge is the all-day venue with the Garcia-designed seating; the Odyssey pool restaurant in the gardens, the open-air poolside dining room re-skinned by Karl Lagerfeld in 2013 with black-and-white photographic tile work, is the summer terrace and the most photographed pool deck in the Principality. The Spa Métropole by Givenchy is the in-house wellness operation, with treatment rooms, thermal pool, hammam, and a Givenchy-signature treatment programme.

Position is the third proposition: Avenue de la Madone is two minutes' walk from the Place du Casino through the Carré d'Or shopping quarter (Hermès, Cartier, Chanel, Gucci of the Galerie du Métropole, the same Galerie that takes the Métropole's name and runs underground beneath the hotel). Eight minutes from Port Hercule on foot, fifteen from the Larvotto beaches. The Hôtel Métropole Monte-Carlo is the editorial answer for guests who want the Carré d'Or address, the Garcia interior vocabulary, the Robuchon dining programme, and the Lagerfeld pool deck, a more design-led, post-2000 alternative to the SBM Belle Époque programme three minutes east.

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