Hôtel Le Meurice

The hotel takes its name from its first owner, Charles-Augustin Meurice, who already owned the Hôtel Meurice in Calais. In Paris he opened a luxury hotel at 223 Rue Saint-Honoré, where the stagecoach from Calais ended its run, for English travellers who expected the comforts of home. In 1835, the year Le Meurice gives as its opening, the hotel moved to a new building on the Rue de Rivoli, close to the Tuileries Palace. Tradition has it that Queen Victoria stayed in 1855, during her official visit to Napoleon III and his wife, and that the hotel's whole first floor was refurbished for her.

Major works followed in two phases between 1898 and 1907, and the Hôtel Métropole on the Rue de Castiglione was acquired to enlarge the hotel. The architect Henri-Paul Nénot had both buildings demolished and rebuilt behind their listed façades, keeping the original Louis XVI style; the lift installed at the time was a copy of Marie Antoinette's sedan chair. The Grand Salon Pompadour, the Salon Fontainebleau, Bar 228, the restaurant's dining room and the glass roof framed in wrought iron that once covered the lobby all survive from that rebuilding. Workers are said to have taken in a stray greyhound from the site; the staff adopted it as a mascot, and it went on to become the hotel's emblem.

Nicknamed 'the hotel of kings', Le Meurice soon became a haunt of crowned heads and the European aristocracy; in 1931 King Alfonso XIII of Spain, then in exile in France, made it his home and the seat of his government. German occupation authorities requisitioned the hotel from September 1940, and in August 1944 it became the headquarters of General Dietrich von Choltitz, military governor of Paris, who did not carry out Hitler's orders to raze the city. Hitler's reported question to him on a Meurice telephone, 'Is Paris burning?', gave its title to a best-selling book on the liberation of Paris and to a 1966 film shot partly at the hotel. Pablo Picasso celebrated his wedding here, and from 1959 Salvador Dalí spent a month a year in Alfonso XIII's former royal suite. In 1997 the Sultan of Brunei's Brunei Investment Agency bought Le Meurice and brought it into the Dorchester Collection, to which the hotel still belongs.

Between 1998 and 2000 the hotel was extensively renovated and restored under Jean-Loup Roubert, chief architect of France's civil buildings and national palaces. Philippe Starck, who began working with Le Meurice in 2007, returned in 2016 for a new decoration campaign.

The hotel faces the Jardin des Tuileries from 228 Rue de Rivoli, and describes the garden as the oldest French formal garden in Paris. From the entrance, the Louvre is in view to the left, a five-minute walk away, and the Eiffel Tower to the right. The Appartement Présidentiel Tuileries frames the same panorama: the Louvre on the left, the Eiffel Tower on the right and the garden straight ahead.

For travellers arriving on the Eurostar, the Gare du Nord is about 15 minutes away by car, and the hotel states that parking is free. Those staying in the Appartement Présidentiel Dalí need not make their own way: they are met at whichever airport or railway station they choose and driven to the door in a private Mercedes-Benz.

The rooms and suites have recently been restored and, as the hotel puts it, carry an artistic soul; the Michelin Guide credits the latest interior renovation to Charles Jouffre and the Lyon-based designers Lally & Berger. The Chambre Classique faces either the inner courtyard or a Parisian street, while the Chambre Deluxe and the Chambre Exécutive both look onto the inner courtyard, which the hotel describes as calm and sheltered from the bustle of the city. For families, the hotel offers suites and connecting rooms with plenty of space, and says that most of its rooms connect.

The 32 m² Chambre Supérieure with Eiffel Tower view and balcony sits under the mansard roof, with bespoke décor on its walls and a private balcony over the city. The 42 m² Chambre Exécutive with Eiffel Tower view and balcony is set apart by hand-made chinoiserie wallpaper that brings a burst of colour, and large French windows open onto three balconies with sweeping views. In the 45 m² Chambre Exécutive with Eiffel Tower view, French windows look across the Jardin des Tuileries to the tower and other Paris monuments.

A secret corridor leads to La Parisienne, a suite looking out over the rooftops of Paris. The Suite Pompadour, on the Rue de Castiglione side, draws on the Marquise de Pompadour for what the hotel describes as avant-garde style, beauty, originality and daring. The 85 m² Suite Versailles, facing the Tuileries, is dressed in Louis XV style, its fabrics in shimmering colours paying tribute to French craftsmanship, while the Suite Héritage, also on the Tuileries side, has a hushed atmosphere and fine wood panelling.

Salvador Dalí's favourite suite, the Appartement Présidentiel Dalí, centres on two vast salons with high ceilings and is furnished with period pieces, silk rugs and antique parquet floors; it can also be connected to other suites for more space. The 160 m² Appartement Présidentiel Tuileries, inspired by Versailles, overlooks the Jardin des Tuileries. The Suite Penthouse Belle Étoile covers 620 m², including a 300 m² terrace, and its panoramic view stretches from Notre-Dame to the Eiffel Tower.

As of 2026, Restaurant Le Meurice Alain Ducasse holds two Michelin stars. Alain Ducasse oversees it with his executive chef, Amaury Bouhours, and its French gastronomic cuisine is served in a room modelled on the Salon de la Paix at Versailles. Ducasse was named head chef in 2013, after Yannick Alléno resigned, and Philippe Starck redesigned both this restaurant and Restaurant Le Dalí. It is open Monday to Friday and closed at weekends. At La Table du Chef, a private room facing the kitchen, guests are served Amaury Bouhours's two-Michelin-starred menu.

Restaurant Le Dalí, inspired by Dalí, serves local, seasonal French cuisine every day beneath a 145-square-metre canvas painted by Ara Starck, Philippe Starck's daughter. La Pâtisserie du Meurice, which the hotel opened in 2018 under pastry chef Cédric Grolet, sells his creations, among them his emblematic sculpted fruits; it opens Wednesday to Sunday from 12:00 until everything has sold out, and the hotel advises arriving early. Tea Time at Le Meurice also carries Grolet's signature.

Bar 228, with its deep leather armchairs and frescoes by the painter Alexandre-Claude-Louis Lavalley, dating from 1905 to 1907, has live jazz every evening and serves drinks every day. It opens at 14:00 and closes at 01:00, with food served until 00:30. Breakfast is served from 07:00 to 10:30 in Restaurant Le Meurice Alain Ducasse or Restaurant Le Dalí, and it can also be taken in the guest's own room.

The hotel houses the only Valmont spa in Paris, with a broad menu of treatments and a fully equipped fitness room. La Maison Valmont pour Le Meurice is also the Swiss brand's official Paris address, with its cosmetics and a collection of fragrances. Valmont created a purifying Hydrafacial exclusively for the hotel, and the brand's facials apply their active ingredients with a signature gesture modelled on the beating of a butterfly's wings.

The spa has hammams, a sauna and four treatment rooms, two of them doubles, and after a treatment guests can take a refreshment in its relaxation areas or in its tree-filled courtyard. The spa itself is open every day from 09:00 to 19:00, and the hotel recommends booking treatments ahead to secure a preferred time. The fitness room, equipped with the latest Technogym machines, keeps longer hours, opening every day from 05:00 until midnight.