The Ritz Paris has two street addresses. Number 15 Place Vendôme is the front: red carpet, top hats, revolving door. Number 38 rue Cambon is the back: the Chanel atelier is a few doors along, the bar sits just inside, the pastry shop is on the same block. One building, two ways in, and a corridor between them that has been there since 1898.
One hundred and forty two keys, split evenly into 71 rooms and 71 suites. One page per place, from the door to the pool to the kitchen to the small bar that takes no reservations. Thirteen pages, about twenty minutes.
The last page has a tickable list of twelve things. Three of them cost nothing, and most guests never learn they are allowed to do them.
01 · The basics
One building, two front doors
Place Vendôme is the face the hotel shows the square. Rue Cambon is the side it shows the neighborhood. The Ritz holds both addresses, and which door you walk through decides which Paris you see first. Here are the numbers the next twelve pages will keep referring back to.
| Opened | June 1, 1898, by César Ritz. The first hotel in the world with electricity on every floor and a private bathroom in every room |
|---|---|
| Renovation | Closed in August 2012, reopened in June 2016, with Thierry W. Despont leading the design. A fire damaged the roof during the works. The room count dropped from 159 to 142, and the space went into the suites |
| Size | 142 keys: 71 rooms and 71 suites. Staff numbering in the several hundreds |
| Ownership | The Ritz Hotel, Limited, registered in England, held by the Al Fayed family. General manager Laurent Herschbach. No chain, no group loyalty program |
| Address | 15 Place Vendôme, 75001 Paris. Second entrance at 38 rue Cambon |
| Phone | +33 1 43 16 30 30. The spa has its own line, +33 1 43 16 30 60 |
| Check in and out | Standard times are 15:00 and 12:00. The hotel states openly that arrival and departure times can be shaped around you, which page 10 returns to |
| Getting there | Métro Opéra about 510 meters, Tuileries about 550 meters, with Concorde and Madeleine also within walking distance. Charles de Gaulle is roughly 29 km and about 40 minutes; Orly is roughly 21 km |
| Parking | Valet service, charged separately |
| Tourist tax | The taxe de séjour, a nightly city tax charged on top of the room rate, is €11.70 per adult aged 18 and over for 2026, settled at checkout |
| Wi-Fi | Free throughout |
| Pets | Dogs under six kilograms, one per room per night, €50 per night, with prior written approval. Not admitted to the restaurants or the spa |
| Smoking | The building is entirely non-smoking. The Terrasse Vendôme and the Grand Jardin are the two exceptions |
Those four closed years are the dividing line in this building's history. Despont raised the lobby ceiling and opened the mezzanine windows so that light from the square could reach the middle of the room. Plumbing, heating, cooling and power were replaced entirely, and the suites received heated floors. The facade kept its seventeenth and eighteenth century composition, columns, pediments and balustrades included, all of it protected. So the Ritz you walk into today dates from 1898 and feels like 2016.
- BookingPut your expected arrival time in the reservation. Times here are negotiable, provided somebody knows when you are landing.
- From CDGAbout forty minutes without traffic and longer with it. The earlier the flight details go across, the smoother the pickup.
- First timeCome in from Place Vendôme. The carpet, the revolving door and the corridor behind them deserve one full pass.
02 · Public rooms
The lobby, the gallery, and that garden
Most people remember the lobby. The structural idea of this building is the corridor that runs from one address to the other, lined with display cases the whole way. Walking it takes three minutes. It rewards twenty.
| Lobby | Blue and gold, deep carpet, grand staircase. The renovation removed a mezzanine apartment and raised the ceiling so daylight reaches in from the square |
|---|---|
| The gallery | An idea of Marie-Louise Ritz, the founder's wife, modeled on the covered arcades near the Palais Royal. Wood paneling and streetlamp fittings, quickly nicknamed the gallery of temptations |
| What is in it | Jewelry cases including Buccellati, Tasaki and Dolce & Gabbana Jewelry, tea from TWG, coffee from Bacha Coffee, Haviland porcelain from Limoges, E.B. Meyrowitz eyewear, and the hotel's own boutique |
| Hotel boutique | Egyptian cotton robes and home fragrance built around Ambre Péristyle, the amber note the ground floor smells of |
| Grand Jardin | Despont's design for the former inner courtyard. Lime trees, white roses, seating set into alcoves, a retractable glass roof and floor heating, usable in any season |
| Terrasse Vendôme | The other outdoor room, and with the garden one of the only two places anyone may smoke |
The gallery is still evolving. The retail team has been making small runs from materials the hotel had already used up. After noticing how much broken porcelain the storerooms had accumulated, they turned fragments of the Marthe service, commissioned by César Ritz in 1898, into a collection of jewelry in 2024. A hotel that turns its own broken plates into something wearable has said more about its attitude to waste than any policy page could.
03 · Rooms
142 keys, and no two windows alike
The size ladder is published plainly, from 35 to 218 square meters. The better question is orientation: Place Vendôme, the Grand Jardin, the Opéra Garnier, or the inner face of the building. The same category in those four positions is four different stays.
| Superior | 35 m² (377 sq ft). Marble bathroom |
|---|---|
| Executive | 40 m² (431 sq ft). Marble bathroom, tub and shower |
| Deluxe | 45 m² (485 sq ft) |
| Grand Deluxe | 55 m² (593 sq ft) |
| Junior suites | Executive 60 m², Deluxe 65 m², with a sitting area and a separate walk-in closet |
| Suites | Executive 75 m², Deluxe 90 m². The Deluxe Suites open toward the Grand Jardin |
| Prestige suites | Named for the people who lived in them. Marcel Proust 67 m², Chopin 68, Charlie Chaplin 72, Ernest Hemingway 79, Opéra 87, Maria Callas 120, Vendôme and Windsor 163 each, L'Appartement Ritz 169, F. Scott Fitzgerald 185, Coco Chanel 188, Impériale 218 |
| In the room | Heated floors in the suites, soundproofed windows, safe, minibar. Cots are free |
| Children | The child rate for accommodation applies up to and including age 17. Guests under 18 may not be left in a non-connecting room, and connecting rooms can be requested at booking |
| Rates | Entry categories commonly land in the low thousands of euros a night depending on season. The hotel publishes Prestige suites from €8,000, with the Fitzgerald suite from €13,700 |
The one question to ask before you book
Ask about orientation first and floor second. Rooms facing the square get one of the most famous streetscapes in Paris and some of the square's activity with it. Rooms facing the Grand Jardin are quiet, softly lit, and full of birdsong in the morning. Rooms on the inner face have neither. This follows from converting a set of old buildings, and no amount of luck changes it. One sentence in the reservation does more than any request made at the desk on arrival.
There is also an expectations question. Thirty-five square meters is not small by Paris standards, but the rate here sets a level of expectation that the entry categories have to carry, which is where the recurring review comment about compact rooms comes from. The categories from 55 square meters upward are the ones that feel generous, and they are also where this hotel is at its most comfortable.
04 · Bathrooms
Swans, marble, and one thing to confirm
The Ritz bathroom has a detail the whole world recognizes. The taps are swans, gilded in 24 carat gold, with crystal set into the handles. They were designed for this hotel and have been in the rooms for decades. Turning on the water was made into an event here.
| Finish | Marble bathrooms, with heated floors in the suites |
|---|---|
| Taps | Swan form, 24 carat gold, crystal in the handles |
| Bathtub | Executive, Deluxe, Grand Deluxe and most suites list a tub as well as a shower. The Superior category does not list one, so confirm at booking if a tub matters to you |
| Products | A house line. The hotel does not publish a partner brand, so ask reservations directly if the formulation matters |
| Also | Robes, slippers, hairdryer. Laundry and pressing are charged, with a price list in the room |
The tub question is worth raising early because in old European buildings the bathroom configuration varies by category within the same hotel, and the entry category tends to be the one that gives something up. This is not particular to the Ritz. It is simply one of the few things here that cannot be solved once you have arrived.
05 · Dining
Espadon, the only star on the square
Espadon took its first Michelin star in March 2024 and holds the only one on Place Vendôme. Chef Eugénie Béziat is the first woman to lead the restaurant, and her cooking carries an African childhood and a Mediterranean career on a French frame.
| Setting | Opens onto the Grand Jardin, with the kitchen behind a long window so the room can watch the work |
|---|---|
| Hours | Tuesday to Saturday, 18:30 to 21:30, dinner only. Summer closure from August 9 to 26 |
| Menus | Three, five or seven courses, moving with the season |
| The team | Chef Eugénie Béziat; pastry chef Olivier Lainé; head sommelier Florian Guilloteau; executive chef Jérôme Legras, running some sixty cooks across the hotel since 2019 |
| Sourcing | The hotel's own kitchen garden at Versailles and an aromatic plot inside the building. The restaurant holds three Ecotable macaroons, a French certification that grades restaurants on environmental practice |
| History | The restaurant dates from 1956. The hotel's first chef was Auguste Escoffier, appointed in 1898 |
Five evenings a week and no lunch service tells you two things. The kitchen is run as a restaurant in its own right rather than as a hotel amenity, and the tables are hard to get. In high season, handle the reservation at the same time as the room and leave nothing to the day of arrival.
- BookingReserve Espadon while you are reserving the room. It is the single thing here that most rewards planning ahead.
- First seatingThe early seating catches the light going out of the garden, which matters most in spring and summer. Later on you are dining by interior light.
- AugustThe summer closure falls in the second half of the month. Bar Vendôme covers those evenings.
06 · Dining
Breakfast to teatime: how the daylight hours work
Espadon owns the evening. During the day this building sets three tables with three different characters: Bar Vendôme under its glass roof, the paneled Salon Proust, and Le Grand Brunch, which exists only on Sundays.
| Breakfast for residents | 7:00 to 11:00, in the Salon Marie-Louise or in the room. American, Japanese or Detox. Breakfast is an optional paid service unless your rate includes it |
|---|---|
| Bar Vendôme | Daily 9:00 to 24:00. A Paris brasserie under a large glass roof, classics and daily dishes. The terrace runs daily from 12:00 to 22:00 with no reservations |
| Wednesday evening | Live at the Ritz at Bar Vendôme, from 20:00 |
| Salon Proust | Daily 13:00 to 19:00. Paneling, old books, a fire in winter. The goûter à la française, the French style afternoon tea, is entirely sweet. From September 1, 2026 it becomes a new Tea Time by pastry chef Olivier Lainé, and from 18:00 the room turns toward Champagne |
| If you want savory | The English style afternoon tea at Bar Vendôme is the one with sandwiches |
| Sunday | Le Grand Brunch, 11:45 to 14:30, buffet under the glass roof with live piano |
A Japanese breakfast option is uncommon in the older Paris houses, and its presence says something about who sleeps here. Over several nights, working through all three is a good use of the mornings, in the sense of experience rather than arithmetic.
- MorningOrder the Japanese breakfast on the first day. It is the least ordered of the three and the most revealing about the kitchen.
- AfternoonSweet at Salon Proust, savory at Bar Vendôme. Reserve either way.
- WednesdayLive music at Bar Vendôme from 20:00, which suits a walk that ends back at the hotel.
07 · Bars
Bar Hemingway, and the Ritz Bar in the garden
Bar Hemingway is one small room of roughly thirty seats, at the far end of the corridor and immediately to the right of the rue Cambon door. It takes no reservations. Those two facts are the whole operating manual.
| Bar Hemingway | Daily 17:00 to 24:00, no booking. Tapas from 17:30 to 22:30. The shortest route in is 38 rue Cambon |
|---|---|
| Ritz Bar | Currently operating in the Grand Jardin, Tuesday to Saturday from 15:00 to 22:00, no reservations. Summer closure August 9 to 24. The indoor Ritz Bar stays closed except in rain or when the garden is privately booked |
| Ritz Bar drinks | Led by Romain De Courcy, with a zodiac themed list and a star-studded ceiling indoors |
| The classics | The Serendipity, built on calvados, apple juice, mint and Champagne, and the Picasso Martini, both from the Bar Hemingway canon |
Where the small bar came from
The hotel opened without a bar at all. The first one arrived in 1921 as a ladies' bar, where the pre-war barman Frank Meier set the house style. It took the Hemingway name in 1979, then faded. It reopened in 1994 under Colin Field, an Englishman who ran it for three decades and created the Serendipity in his first year. Field has since left the Ritz, and the hotel now refers to its bartender without naming him. Accounts of that transition differ across sources. The drinks list has stayed remarkably steady.
08 · Pool and spa
Ritz Club & Spa, through the door at number 17
Pool, sauna, fitness and hair salon sit together in the Ritz Club & Spa, entered from 17 Place Vendôme or from inside the hotel. The pool runs sixteen meters, is held at thirty degrees, plays music underwater, and has a sky painted across the ceiling.
| Pool and sauna | Daily 7:00 to 22:00. Sixteen meters, heated to 30°C, with underwater music. Twin mermaids in mosaic on the floor of the pool and a trompe-l'œil sky overhead. Sauna and steam room alongside |
|---|---|
| Fitness | Daily 7:00 to 22:00, and 24 hours for hotel residents. Three rooms, two of them private, with coaches available |
| Floral Bar | Upstairs from the fitness area, with floral drinks, juices and the hotel menu |
| Treatments | Daily 9:00 to 20:00, by reservation. Facials, body work, massage, nails and makeup, with La Prairie and Biologique Recherche among the partners |
| Nails | The Nail Bar works with Kure Bazaar and has an exclusive shade called Ritzy |
| Hair | David Mallett salon, Monday to Saturday, 9:00 to 19:00 |
| Children | Ages five and up are admitted for private lessons by appointment only. Family hours are Wednesday 13:00 to 18:00 and Saturday and Sunday 8:00 to 13:00. Under 16s must be accompanied |
| Non-residents | Day access at €300 per person Monday to Thursday and €350 on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and public holidays, with different terms when treatments are booked. By reservation |
| Notes | Treatments can be moved or canceled up to 24 hours ahead. The pool closes August 17 to 20 |
- EarlyThe hour after opening at seven is close to empty. Residents also have the fitness rooms through the night.
- With childrenFamily hours are Wednesday afternoon and weekend mornings. The rest of the schedule belongs to adults.
- TreatmentsBook well ahead. This is the facility guests most often report being unable to get into.
09 · School and pastry
École Ritz Escoffier, and the glass door on rue Cambon
The hotel's first chef was Auguste Escoffier, appointed in 1898, and half the structure of modern French cooking came out of his kitchen. His name is now on the school inside the building, and on the street beside it the hotel keeps its own pastry shop.
| The school | École Ritz Escoffier. Two kitchens and a pastry lab, small groups, from single sessions to professional programs |
|---|---|
| Language | Classes are taught in French with consecutive interpretation into English |
| Formats | Themed sessions of about four hours, private classes and events, and Qualiopi-certified professional training, Qualiopi being the French quality standard for vocational courses. A recent collaboration with the caviar house Kaviari runs as a class |
| Afterward | Participants receive a certificate |
| Arriving | Arriving more than fifteen minutes late means the class cannot take you, and the session is not rescheduled. The rule protects the group already working |
| Le Comptoir | 38 rue Cambon. Monday to Saturday 8:00 to 20:00, Sunday 9:00 to 20:00 |
| What to look for | The madeleine, a nod to Proust, along with the marble cake, a millefeuille built to travel, the Ritz Au Lait, and the pastry drinks |
| Background | Opened in 2021 by François Perret and marking five years in 2026, with seasonal collections by chef Joris Theysset. A second shop sits on the Left Bank at 45 rue de Sèvres |
Le Comptoir sits beside the rue Cambon door, and the position is deliberate. You do not have to be a guest and you do not have to reserve. Push the door at eight in the morning, buy a box of madeleines, and a piece of the hotel's pastry kitchen leaves with you. For residents it is the easiest last stop before departure. For everyone else it is the lowest doorstep into the Ritz.
10 · Booking
How to book a hotel with no loyalty program
The Ritz belongs to no chain, so there are no points, no membership tiers and no upgrade queue by status. What differentiates one reservation from another here is the channel it comes through, and whether the right things were said in advance.
| Advisor amenities | Through Fora Rates, the package includes daily American breakfast for two; a guaranteed one category upgrade confirmed at the time of booking, up to the Deluxe Suite and excluding the Prestige Suites; a VIP greeter on arrival with round trip transfers; an arrangement that removes fixed check in and check out times; and full access to the Ritz Club |
|---|---|
| Conditions | Transfers need flight details in advance, and the flexible timing needs your arrival time given at booking. The contracted list at the time of your reservation is what governs |
| On top of the rate | Tourist tax of €11.70 per adult aged 18 and over per night for 2026, valet parking, and €50 per night for a dog. Wi-Fi is free and there is no resort or facility fee |
| Breakfast | Officially an optional paid service, 7:00 to 11:00, American, Japanese or Detox. Whether it is included depends on your rate |
| Cancellation | Set by the rate. Certain peak date ranges require fifteen days, most others seven, with the full stay charged after the deadline |
| Booking limits | Individual reservations cap at nine rooms, thirty nights or €100,000 per stay. Above that it goes to the groups desk |
| Payment | Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Carte Bleue, Apple Pay, Google Pay and bank transfer. JCB is not accepted |
Of those amenities, the easiest one to underrate is the time. The hotel already states that arrival and departure can be arranged around the guest; the advisor channel writes it into the booking. In practice it means that landing at seven in the morning can end with you asleep in a bed, and that a late afternoon flight can begin with a slow morning in the room rather than in a lobby. The value is not in the number. It is in the first and last days of the trip staying whole.
Breakfast works the same way. Two breakfasts a day means that after you wake up there is nothing to decide. You go downstairs, the table is held, and somebody asks whether it is the American or the Japanese today.
- BookingSay three things at once: which way the room should face, when you arrive and leave, and that you want Espadon.
- Before you flySend both flight numbers so the transfers can be scheduled.
- On arrivalConfirm spa treatments and the tea sitting at check in. Those two fill first.
11 · Published reviews
Where it wins, and where it catches
Platform scores have sat above nine and a half for years, and feedback through advisor channels runs equally high. The praise concentrates on service and location. The deductions concentrate on room scale, availability, and the occasional gap in communication.
Repeated praise
- Service that remembers people, by name and by preference, and that produces restaurant tables nobody else can get
- Location. The Opéra, the Tuileries and the Louvre are all walkable, and most itineraries never need a car
- Airport meet and greet with fast tracking, which changes the shape of a long haul arrival
- The pool and spa, and the atmosphere of Bar Hemingway
- Breakfast, and the pastry at Salon Proust
- Beds, linen and the finish of the bathrooms
Honest deductions
- Entry categories read as compact, and at this rate they are examined closely
- Spa treatments and Bar Hemingway fill up, so spontaneous plans often fail
- Occasional slips in confirming reservations or transfers, discovered by the guest after the fact
- A formal register throughout, which will feel stiff to anyone who prefers contemporary design
12 · Around
This part of Paris is better on foot
The scale of the first arrondissement makes a car redundant. From the door, ten minutes will put you in the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Opéra Garnier or the Madeleine, and the walk is good the whole way.
| At the door | Place Vendôme itself, the column at its center, and a full ring of jewelry and watch houses |
|---|---|
| The back street | Rue Cambon. The Chanel atelier stands at number 31 and the hotel's pastry shop at number 38 |
| Within ten minutes | Jardin des Tuileries, Musée de l'Orangerie, the Louvre, the Palais Royal, the Opéra Garnier, and the food shops around the Madeleine |
| Métro | Opéra about 510 meters, Tuileries about 550 meters, with Concorde and Madeleine also walkable |
| Airports | Charles de Gaulle about 29 km, Orly about 21 km |
| Alternatives nearby | Le Meurice and Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme in the same few streets, Cheval Blanc Paris by the river. The Mandarin Oriental is under renovation |
One 2026 development is useful context. France updated its official Palace list on June 2. The distinction sits a step above five stars, is awarded by the state tourism agency with an independent commission, and is renewed every three years. Thirty-three houses made the 2026 collection, thirteen of them in Paris, and for the first time some properties were removed, including Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme and Mandarin Oriental Paris. When that list moves, the ranking of an entire street moves with it. Why the Ritz is absent from it is the subject of the next page.
13 · Little known and closing
Three things, one route, twelve boxes
1. It is absent from France's official Palace list
France created the Palace distinction in 2010 as a rank above five stars, awarded by Atout France with an independent commission and renewed every three years. The 2026 collection published in June holds thirty-three houses, thirteen of them in Paris, and the Ritz is not among them. Failing to make the original list was one of the reasons the hotel closed for its restoration in the first place. Since reopening, according to trade reporting, the house has chosen not to submit an application at all, on the basis that its own name already does the work. You can argue about whether that is wise. It states very clearly how this hotel sees itself.
2. The corridor was a commercial idea from 1898
Putting shops in a hotel hallway looks obvious now. In 1898 it was not. Marie-Louise Ritz brought the covered arcades of the Palais Royal quarter indoors so that guests never had to go outside to buy anything, and the result was nicknamed the gallery of temptations within months. The renovation restored the cases one by one and opened the hallway up with tall windows onto the garden. Walking it today means walking through a piece of retail thinking that is more than a century and two decades old.
3. The door on rue Cambon
The back door carries as much of the hotel's history as the front. Chanel lived upstairs for more than thirty years and left by it every working day. Diana, Princess of Wales, left the hotel by the same door late on August 31, 1997. One doorway holding both the ordinary and the historic is something only old hotels manage. Today it is the shortest route to Bar Hemingway, and most guests walk through it without knowing what they are walking through.
- AfternoonCome in from Place Vendôme, check in, then walk the corridor all the way and step out onto rue Cambon to see the street.
- 17:00Bar Hemingway as the doors open, the one hour with no wait.
- EveningThe first seating at Espadon, or Bar Vendôme under the glass roof.
- LateThe fitness rooms run all night and the pool closes at 22:00. For quiet, the garden.
- 7:00The pool opens and is still empty. Shower upstairs, then breakfast.
- CheckoutLe Comptoir at 38 rue Cambon for a box of madeleines.
Book it if
- The hotel is the destination. This building holds three days without you going outside
- You are bringing someone to Paris for the first time. Location, service and name need no explanation
- You book through an advisor. With no loyalty program, the channel is where the difference comes from
Do not if
- Contemporary design matters to you. The vocabulary here is eighteenth century French
- You would rather be left alone. Service density is high by design
- You are at an entry category budget while expecting suite proportions
The great Paris houses each make a different argument. Some go all in on contemporary design, others let three Michelin stars speak. The Ritz sells a name, a corridor, and a way of receiving people that has barely changed in more than a century. Which one you want depends on how you would like this trip to treat you.
This piece is written prospectively: what you will encounter, not what I encountered. Facilities, hours and rules are compiled from the hotel's own published pages, its booking terms, press reporting and platform reviews. I have not stayed at this property and nothing here is presented as first-hand experience. Note in particular that the spa is no longer a Chanel spa, that the Ritz Bar is currently operating in the garden, and that the bar team at Bar Hemingway has changed. Outdated versions of all three still circulate widely. This piece follows the hotel's current published information. Operations change often, so confirm before you book.