A century-old grand hotel two minutes from the Arc de Triomphe, 83 rooms in carved-wood and mix rooms, an English Bar that ran the post-war Paris film set, and a seventh-floor terrace looking straight back down the Champs-Élysées axis.
"The Raphael is what most American visitors mean when they say they want a Paris hotel, Louis XVI rooms, an English Bar where the brass is older than the franc, and a rooftop terrace where the Arc de Triomphe looks like a stage set arranged for the dinner you've just ordered."
The Raphael opened in 1925 on Avenue Kléber, two minutes' walk from the Étoile, in a carved-stone Haussmannian building commissioned by Léonard Tauber, the Hungarian-born hotelier who had previously built the Hôtel Majestic on the same avenue. Tauber wanted a smaller, more intimate counterpoint, a private grand hotel for industrialists, statesmen, and the new American leisure class then rediscovering Paris between the wars. The result was the Raphael as it stands today: 83 rooms over seven floors, walnut panelling in the public rooms, an English Bar with a Turner painting on the wall, and a seventh-floor rooftop terrace looking east down Avenue Kléber to the Arc de Triomphe and beyond it the full length of the Champs-Élysées.
The rooms are decorated in Louis XV and Louis XVI style, silk wall hangings, gilt mirrors, Aubusson rugs, marquetry desks, marble bathrooms, and are deliberately untouched by the contemporary five-star vocabulary. Standard rooms run 24, 32 square metres; Junior Suites and the named Suites (the Caruso, the Kléber, the Présidentielle) run from 50 to over 110 square metres, with several offering balconies onto Avenue Kléber and a handful with direct Eiffel Tower views. The category to book is the Suite Présidentielle on the seventh floor, which has a private terrace looking onto the Arc de Triomphe, the single most photographed private terrace view in the 16th arrondissement.
Dining is small but specific. La Salle à Manger, the panelled gastronomic restaurant, serves a French menu under chef Amaury Bouhours; the English Bar, opened in 1925 with the hotel and barely altered since, is the Paris bar where the post-war film community based itself, where Marlon Brando reportedly held court during the shoot of Last Tango in Paris, and which still operates as a small-and-quiet rival to the Hemingway at the Ritz. The seventh-floor rooftop terrace, Les Jardins Plein Ciel, opens for lunch and cocktails April through October and is the hotel's strongest single asset, there is no closer luxury terrace to the Arc.
The Raphael is a member of Leading Hotels of the World and remains family-owned (the Tauber family's original Société des Grands Hôtels Européens). It does not compete with Le Bristol on contemporary grand-hotel theatre, with the Cheval Blanc on contemporary art, or with the Crillon on Place de la Concorde gravitas, but on the specific brief of a quiet, untouched, Belle Époque-style Paris five-star with the best terrace view on the right bank, it has no real rival. Honeymooners, anniversary couples, and a particular kind of returning Paris regular all keep it half-booked through the season.
For a Paris anniversary the Raphael is the answer for couples who want classic Paris over contemporary Paris. Junior Suites with Eiffel Tower glimpses run €1,200, 1,800/night; the Suite Présidentielle with its private Arc de Triomphe terrace is the milestone room. Dinner in La Salle à Manger followed by a nightcap in the English Bar is the textbook anniversary evening. The seventh-floor terrace handles proposal-quiet table arrangements without fuss.
Honeymoon at the Raphael for couples who want the Paris of their grandparents' photographs, silk-tented rooms, rotary-dial-style telephones, the seventh-floor terrace at sunset, a dinner table at La Salle à Manger booked under the concierge's name. It is the choice that ages well; couples who book it tend to come back for the tenth and the twenty-fifth.
For business stays in the 16th, Avenue d'Iéna corporate headquarters, the Trocadéro embassies, the OECD on Avenue Foch, the Raphael is the local five-star. The English Bar runs as a discreet alternative meeting room; the small private dining rooms on the first floor handle six-to-twelve-person working lunches; the location is two minutes from Charles de Gaulle, Étoile RER and 35 minutes by car from CDG.
17 Avenue Kléber
75116 Paris
France
Charles de Gaulle, Étoile metro 2 minutes; Trocadéro 8 minutes on foot; CDG 35 minutes by car
83 rooms over 7 floors
Classic Rooms from €490/night
Junior Suites from €900/night
Named Suites from €1,400/night
Suite Présidentielle from €4,200/night
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 12:00 PM
Opened 1925; family-owned (Tauber family)
Leading Hotels of the World
La Salle à Manger gastronomic restaurant
The English Bar (since 1925)
Les Jardins Plein Ciel rooftop terrace (Apr, Oct)
Hammam, sauna and fitness room
Free Wi-Fi
From €490/night. The Suite Présidentielle and the Arc-facing balcony rooms book three to four months out for May, June and September, October weekends, and earlier for Fashion Week.
Book This Hotel →The 1928 grand hotel two streets from the Champs-Élysées with three Michelin stars at Le Cinq.
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The red-geranium balconies of Avenue Montaigne and Alain Ducasse's three-starred dining room.