Ritz Paris Place Vendôme

César Ritz opened the hotel on June 1, 1898. He was 48 years old. He had started in the hotel business as a waiter at age 15 in Switzerland. By the time he built the Ritz, he had managed hotels across Europe, including the Savoy in London. He chose a mansion on Place Vendôme that had belonged to the Duke de Gramont. The architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart had designed its façade in the early 18th century.

The hotel had 210 rooms. Each room had its own bathroom, electricity, and a telephone. This was not common in 1898. Most hotels at the time had shared bathrooms down the hall. Ritz hired Auguste Escoffier as executive chef. Escoffier had worked with Ritz at the Savoy. The two of them created a standard for hotel dining that did not exist before.

Mohamed Al-Fayed bought the hotel in 1979 for $20 million. He spent $250 million over ten years renovating it while it stayed open. By 2011, the building needed work again. The heating system was outdated. The air conditioning did not meet current standards. The Wi-Fi was slow.

Al-Fayed hired Thierry Despont to lead the renovation. Despont had restored the Statue of Liberty in the 1980s. He had worked on Claridge's in London, the Carlyle in New York, and the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

The hotel closed on August 1, 2012. More than 600 workers came in. They replaced the plumbing, the wiring, and the heating. They installed floor heating under the garden terrace. They built a retractable glass roof over the patio restaurant. They dug a tunnel under Place Vendôme so guests could arrive from the parking garage without being seen.

Nassim Yaghmaei worked as the hotel's design manager during the renovation. "We held up to 10 interviews each to choose a supplier," he said. "We wanted artisans who could produce the perfect outcome. Some chairs were repainted 15 times to replicate their original colour."

A fire broke out in January 2016. It started on the seventh floor. Firefighters put it out within hours. The damage delayed the reopening by three months.

Several suites carry the names of former guests. The Coco Chanel Suite is on the second floor. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a living room with windows facing Place Vendôme. The rate starts at €18,000 per night.

Gabrielle Chanel moved into the hotel in 1937. Her shop was across the street at 31 rue Cambon. She walked back and forth between the two buildings every day. She brought her own furniture into suite 302. She kept her Coromandel screens, her Venetian mirrors, and her books. She stayed until her death in 1971. That was 34 years.

Karl Lagerfeld worked with the hotel's design team on the current suite. He selected fabrics and approved furniture. The color palette is black, white, and beige. Archive photographs of Chanel hang on the walls. Lagerfeld died in 2019.

The Imperial Suite is registered as a Historic Monument. It has 20-foot ceilings and 2,660 square feet of floor space. The bedroom was designed to resemble Marie Antoinette's room at Versailles. The rate is €28,000 per night.

The bar is at the back of the hotel, past the gallery of shops on rue Cambon. It seats about 25 people. Photographs cover the walls. A model of Hemingway's fishing boat, the Pilar, sits on a shelf.

Colin Field became head bartender in 1994. He had written his first letter to the Ritz in 1980, when he was 19. "I sent my first letter of application to the Ritz when I was 18," Field said in an interview. "Already by that time I'd converted my bedroom into a bar. I actually had a real bar in my bedroom, with stools and bottles behind it."

It took him 14 years to get the job. Forbes magazine named him the best bartender in the world in 1997, 2001, and 2004.

The bar was called Le Petit Bar when it opened in 1921. It later became Bar Bertin. It closed in 1982 and stayed closed for 12 years. Field reopened it when he arrived. Most of the memorabilia in the bar belongs to him. His father's propeller from a Gypsy Moth hangs on the wall.

The Ritz Sidecar is listed at €1,500. It contains 1865 Ritz Fine Champagne Cognac, Cointreau, and lemon juice. It was once in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive cocktail.

Field left the Ritz in 2023 after 30 years.

The École Ritz Escoffier opened in 1988. It is named after Auguste Escoffier. The school offers courses in French cooking and pastry. A four-hour macaron class costs several hundred euros. There is also a course devoted entirely to lobster.

François Perret runs the pastry department. He was named best restaurant pastry chef in 2019. In 2024, the Ritz pastry shop at 38 rue Cambon won the title of best patisserie in the world. The shop sells madeleines, sandwiches, and pastries to take away.

The lobby kept its floor plan. A mezzanine apartment was removed to add height. The sitting area became a paneled library called Salon Proust. Guests take afternoon tea there. Marcel Proust was a regular at the hotel from 1898 until his death in 1922. He wrote parts of In Search of Lost Time in his room. According to hotel records, he ordered cold beer from the Ritz kitchen on his deathbed.

The Chanel spa opened in 2016. It is the first spa operated by Chanel. It has seven treatment rooms, a pool with mosaic tiles, and a fitness center. The pool area has an Art Deco design.

Room rates start at around €1,200 per night.

France has a classification called "Palace" for hotels that exceed the five-star standard. The Ritz did not receive this designation when the category was introduced. Several other Paris hotels did. The renovation was seen by some observers as an attempt to meet Palace requirements.

The hotel was awarded Palace status after the renovation.

The Ritz has 600 employees. That is more than four staff members per room.