Paris, as Ernest Hemingway once wrote, is a moveable feast—one so rich and endlessly layered, you could linger for a lifetime and still never taste it all. The city has captured the hearts of travelers of centuries for its innate elegance and beauty, along with that ineffable je ne sais quoi.
It’s no surprise, then, that the French city is home to some of the most enchanting, wonderfully curated hotels in the world. Whether in a 19th-century château with a private garden, an Art Deco mansion with an intriguing history, or at a former fashion atelier reimagined for the present day, the city’s hotels invite you to experience Paris at its most beautiful and beguiling. Stretching from the bohemian to the absurdly opulent, with everything from garret rooms overlooking the gray slated roofs of its skyline to gilded suites with Eiffel Tower views, Michelin-starred restaurants or cocktails gardens tucked privately away, the city’s most beautiful hotels don’t just offer a place to stay, but worlds of their own.
Perks: Near the Louvre Museum, Tuileries Garden, and Opéra Garnier; art collection; fashionable restaurant and bar popular with locals
Château Voltaire takes its name not from the French philosopher, but from one of its great fashion talents instead, Zadig & Voltaire—of which the hotel’s owner, Thierry Gillier, is a co-founder. As one would expect, Gillier’s hotel, which once served as the Zadig & Voltaire showroom, is just as precisely fine-tuned as a well-tailored garment. It feels surprisingly personal, too, with pieces from Gillier’s own art collection (including a Picasso in one suite) on the walls. Three separate buildings dating from the 17th to 19th centuries became one as Gillier worked with Festen Architecture and Atelier Franck Durand to create the 32-room hotel in a casually sophisticated palette of muted tones that look made for a Polaroid. It’s the hotel’s pared-down aesthetic that makes it difficult to discern between guest and local, both of whom find sanctuary with cocktails at Voltaire’s La Coquille d’Or or dinner at Brasserie l’Emil. From $663 per night.
Perks: Extensive library, atmospheric bar, La Mer spa
A hotel as evocative as dipping a madeleine into a cup of lime blossom tea, Maison Proust is more like stepping into an intimate world of refinement than checking into a hotel. The hotel’s Belle Époque elegance, which stretches across six floors of a carefully restored townhouse, feels as detailed as Proust’s prose and far more intimate than many its more famous peers in the hospitality space. Intricate patterns, rich colors, and sumptuous furniture punctuate the twenty-three rooms and suites. And although France’s famous literary son did not himself live here, it’s easy to imagine him in the hotel’s thousand-volume domed library, the romantically velvet-bar, or indulging at the Moroccan-styled La Mer spa. From $1,134 per night.
Perks: Near Gare de l’Est and Gare du Nord; restaurant and bar; sauna
The first hotel undertaken by British artist and interior designer Luke Edward Hall, Hotel Les Deux Gares is much like the designer himself—young, bold, and playful. Hotel Les Deux Gares doesn’t take itself too seriously, if you couldn’t already tell by the Kodachrome palette that permeates each space: think red-and-white tiled bathrooms, graphic wallpapers, along with bold swaths of colorful, Art Deco–inspired furniture. Situated between two of the city’s main train stations, the hotel is an ideal jumping off point for adventurers, particularly for fashionable solo travelers. There are even a few single-occupancy rooms. Other amenities, like a Finnish-style sauna and a robust natural wine list at the bar and restaurant, feel tailor-made to younger generations of globetrotters. From $173 per night.
Perks: Along The Champs-Élysées, near the Arc de Triomphe, Decorté spa, historic restaurant
The red window awnings of Hôtel Barrière Le Fouquet’s are almost as iconic as the Eiffel Tower itself. There’s a subtle, quiet elegance in this French-owned hotel which offers rooms and suites, the latter of which are laid out in the style of grand 19th-century Parisian apartments, complete with balconies looking out on the Champs-Élysées, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower. Hôtel Barrière’s legendary restaurant, Fouquet’s, has been hosting a who’s who of French icons and international celebrities since it opened in 1899 and today draws the kind of crowd who come to savor perfectly cooked escargot at Edith Piaf’s favorite table while indulging in some grand cru-level people watching. From $1,595 per night.
Perks: Near the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées, elegant Art Deco bar
Hotel Napoleon is no stranger to grand gestures. In the 1920s, the Art Deco mansion turned hotel was purchased as a wedding gift by a wealthy Russian man for his young Parisian bride. The couple lived in the hotel for years and hosted a long line of literary and artistic legends including Josephine Baker, Ernest Hemingway, Errol Flynn, Orson Wells, Salvador Dalí, and Miles Davis. Although the hotel’s décor has been updated over the decades, the property remains largely and timelessly—as its name would suggest—Napoleonic, apart from a Jazz Age style bar, with the furniture and art skewing more directoire than deco. From $635 per night.
Perks: Near the Champs-Élysées, a restaurant with three Michelin Stars, Spa Nescens including an indoor pool
La Réserve feels a bit like a daydream manifested. To stay here is to indulge in the fantasy that you’re not merely visiting, but also live here among its luxurious, apartment-style rooms. Of all the grand hotels in the eighth arrondissement, La Réserve feels the most intimate, the most discreet, and the most dressed-up. The Haussmannian-style building is laid out more like a private home with a reception room rather than a lobby, and a well-stocked library and old-fashioned smoking room. French architect and designer Jacques Garcia has styled La Réserve’s suites as modern homages to the building’s early-20th-century roots while maintaining historic details including marble fireplaces, engraved Cordoba leather, carved friezes, moldings, and cornices. The hotel’s crowning jewel is its restaurant, Le Gabriel, which has the distinction of earning three Michelin stars. From $2,049 per night.
Perks: Near the Opéra Garnier and the Marais, restaurant and café, rooftop bar
Tucked away off the Boulevard Poissonnière and reachable via a garden path, Grands Boulevards Experimental has a distinctly La Bohème romance that seems to straddle the line between the present and the 19th century past. The hotel owes its sophisticated design to French designer Dorothée Meilichzon, who has reimagined the historic spaces into a glass-roofed airy restaurant and café, along with pink- and green-tinged guest rooms that feature majestically canopied beds, mercury glass and marble accents, along with rustic wood furniture. The attic-level rooms are the most prime lodgings, with their sloped ceilings that lie right under the building’s historic eaves. It’s easy to get swept away into the past looking out on the slate roofs of the second and ninth arrondissements, but the jazz-tuned radios and bottled negronis that await you at Grand Boulevards will root you firmly in the present. From $296 per night.
Perks: Near the Arc de Triomphe and Trocadéro, a Guerlain Spa, Michelin-star restaurant, private garden
Few of the hotels in this city, even the most beautiful among them, feel quite as regal as the Saint James. Built as a château in the 1890s, and on the site of the first hot air balloon landing in Paris no less, the neoclassical building was originally home to a research institute and later became a well-established private social club. It wasn’t until a century into its history that the grand building became a hotel encompassing twenty-two bedrooms. Today it’s the only château-hotel in Paris. That’s a distinction it wears proudly, as evidenced by the rooms, which are designed to feel less like a hotel and more like a visit to a wealthy foreign uncle. Its Michelin-starred restaurant Bellefeuille, large garden, and a Guerlain Spa round out the Saint James’ idyll. From $850 per night.
Perks: location near the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, private garden, restaurant, cocktail bar
The timeless allure of Montmartre is palpable at Hôtel Particulier, both within its historic walls and outside in its Edenic garden. The hotel was built in the 19th century as a private home with an enviable walled garden designed by Louis Benech, the landscape architect behind the mastery of the Tuileries Garden. Today, this home turned hotel offers just five suites which were brought to life by interior and design studio Pierre Lacroix, each with a personality of their own, from leopard walls and red accents to an airy suite with an all-encompassing garden mural. Hôtel Particulier’s private garden has been the scene of many a party throughout the centuries, and in the present day, a DJ spins to a cocktail-sipping set every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. From $747 per night.
