Hôtel de Crillon Paris — A 2026 Reassessment: Place de la Concorde, Eight Years Into Rosewood

The Hôtel de Crillon occupies the eastern of the two identical Ange-Jacques Gabriel hôtels particuliers that flank the rue Royale on the northern side of the Place de la Concorde — buildings commissioned by Louis XV in 1758 and completed in 1772 as part of the original Place Louis XV scheme that became the Concorde after the Revolution. The western twin houses the Hôtel de la Marine (now a museum). The Crillon has been a hotel since 1909, was owned by the Taittinger family until 2005, then by a Saudi-Royal consortium, and has been managed by Rosewood Hotels & Resorts since the 2013 closure for the four-year, EUR 176 million restoration that culminated in the 5 July 2017 reopening.

I have stayed at the Crillon eight times since the Rosewood reopening, most recently for three nights from March 9 to March 12, 2026 in the Marie-Antoinette Suite — a Tristan Auer-influenced (the Marie-Antoinette is technically attributed to the Cyril Vergniol heritage scheme) signature suite on the second floor with a window axis directly onto the Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries beyond. Rate paid, EUR 18,500 per night before tax, no comp, no press rate, paid revenue. I also spent an arranged 90-minute walk-through of the Choupette Suite (one of the two Karl Lagerfeld-designed Grands Appartements) on the afternoon of March 11 while the suite was between guests; that visit was not a paid stay.

Eight years past the reopening is now the right interval for a reassessment. The 2017 reopening review across the French and international luxury press was rapturous and — fairly, given the scale of the EUR 176 million investment and the four-year construction — uncritical of any soft notes. By 2019 the property had settled into operating rhythm and the early reviews of L’Écrin, Brasserie d’Aumont and the Sense Spa were broadly positive. By 2021 to 2022 the property had absorbed two changes of managing director (Marc-Olivier Raffray to Vincent Billiard in January 2020) and had run a full cycle of post-COVID operation. By 2024 to 2025 the property had received the renewed French Palace distinction and was being read by the trade press as a clear top-three property in Paris. The question for this stay was whether that top-three positioning holds in 2026 against a Paris Palace tier that has been densifying rapidly — Bvlgari Hôtel Paris opened in December 2024, the Ritz Paris finished a multi-year programme of room refreshes in 2025, and Le Bristol completed a substantial spa-and-pool refresh in early 2026.

The short answer is yes, with two qualifications. The Crillon remains in the top three of the Paris Palace stack on rooms and signature-suite hardware. It has the strongest single arrival experience in Paris by location alone — there is no other Palace fronting directly onto a UNESCO World Heritage square with the Tuileries-to-Champs-Élysées axial view. And the Lagerfeld and Auer suites are genuinely the most architecturally distinctive signature suites in the city. The two qualifications are: first, the F&B stack remains thinner than the Bristol and the George V, with one Michelin star at L’Écrin against Le Bristol’s four and the George V’s five; second, the Brasserie d’Aumont, while operationally excellent, does not have the destination-restaurant gravitational pull that 114 Faubourg or Le George do. These are not deal-breakers for the right guest — they are the honest framing of where the property sits in 2026.

Quick answer

For a UHNW guest who values the arrival ritual above all else and wants a stay anchored on the historic public rooms of a true Palace, the Crillon is the right address in Paris. For a stay where suite hardware and contemporary design language matter and where the guest is willing to engage with the Lagerfeld or Auer signature suites, the Crillon is the answer. For a stay where multi-restaurant in-house dining is the anchor — three or four meals across the property over five nights — Le Bristol and the George V remain ahead. For a more contemporary Italian operating culture, Bvlgari Hôtel Paris is the new credible challenger. The Crillon in 2026 is a specialist proposition that does its specialties at the highest level in the city.

Location and arrival

The Crillon’s address is 10 Place de la Concorde, on the northern frontage of the square between the rue Royale and the rue Boissy d’Anglas. Five-minute walks reach the gardens of the Tuileries, the Place Vendôme (Ritz Paris, Mauboussin, Chaumet, Boucheron, Van Cleef & Arpels), the Champs-Élysées (Cartier, Tiffany, the Apple Store), the Madeleine and the Élysée Palace. Ten-minute walks reach the Louvre, the Palais Royal, the Faubourg Saint-Honoré row (Hermès, Goyard, Chanel, Le Bristol), and the Opéra Garnier. The Place de la Concorde itself is a UNESCO World Heritage component of the Paris Banks of the Seine inscription and is the largest formal square in central Paris by area; the Crillon’s frontage commands the most prestigious side of the square, on the axis that runs from the Louvre through the Tuileries to the Concorde, through the Champs-Élysées, to the Arc de Triomphe and on to La Défense.

Arrival is the property’s single most distinctive ritual and the operational reason a meaningful share of guests choose the Crillon over the Ritz, the Bristol or the George V. The car enters from rue Boissy d’Anglas, turns under the porte-cochere at the side of the building, and is met by two doormen — one in a long cutaway coat with a top hat, one in the standard livery. The principal door opens directly onto the Tristan Auer-designed lobby, a contemporary intervention that the 2013 to 2017 restoration team made into the historic shell. Check-in is conducted seated in the lobby, away from any communal counter, with a managed luggage transfer running in parallel to the principal suite. On my March 9 arrival, kerb to chair was 36 seconds and chair to suite door was 4 minutes 50 seconds including a brief introduction to the floor butler.

The Auer lobby is the most architecturally controversial intervention of the 2013 to 2017 restoration and the one I would point any prospective guest at first. Auer’s brief was to design a contemporary lobby that did not pretend to be an eighteenth-century space, while remaining sympathetic to the heritage envelope. He worked with a palette of pale Carrara, hand-knotted silk rugs, custom Lalique crystal lighting, and a furniture programme drawn from contemporary commissioned pieces alongside curated mid-century works. The result is a lobby that reads as a high-end private gallery rather than as a hotel reception — which is the right answer for a building whose heritage public spaces (the Salon des Aigles, the Salon Marie-Antoinette, the Salon des Batailles) are protected interiors that cannot be altered. The Auer intervention separates the modern reception function from the heritage public rooms in a way the property’s pre-2013 incarnation never quite managed.

Charles de Gaulle is 35 to 55 minutes by car depending on time of day; Le Bourget is 25 minutes on a clean run; Orly is 30 to 50 minutes. The property runs a fleet of Mercedes-Maybach S-Class and standard S-Class transfers; pricing is published internally and runs roughly EUR 380 to EUR 580 each way to CDG, EUR 320 to EUR 450 to LBG. I have used the service five times across the eight stays and have not had an operational issue.

The property in context

The Crillon’s room count is 124 — 78 rooms, 36 suites, and 10 signature suites (the Grands Appartements). This is a deliberate reduction from the 147-key pre-closure inventory and one of the lowest key counts in the Paris Palace tier alongside Cheval Blanc Paris (72 keys) and Bvlgari Hôtel Paris (76 keys). The suite ratio is 37 per cent, with the signature-suite count of 10 placing the Crillon ahead of every other Paris Palace in absolute terms (Ritz Paris has 8 signature suites, Le Bristol has 9, George V has 8, Plaza Athénée has 8, Le Meurice has 7).

The Richard Martinet-led architecture programme involved a complete strip-out of the post-war public-area interventions, the restoration of the protected facade and the historic salons (classified heritage landmarks by the French government), the replacement of every mechanical, electrical and plumbing system in the building, and the addition of the basement Sense Spa with the 16-metre indoor pool. The interior-design programme drew on four Paris-based designers working in parallel: Tristan Auer handled the lobby, the reception, Brasserie d’Aumont and a subset of guest rooms; Chahan Minassian handled the bulk of the standard rooms and suites; Cyril Vergniol handled the historic public salons and the Marie-Antoinette Suite; Aline Asmar d’Amman handled selected heritage public rooms. Karl Lagerfeld, in a separate commission outside the four-designer framework, designed two of the Grands Appartements — the Suite Choupette (named for his Birman cat) and the Suite Karl Lagerfeld — in a sharply contemporary monochrome scheme that contrasts deliberately with the heritage envelope.

The total investment was EUR 176 million, the closure period was four years, and the reopening took place on 5 July 2017 with then-managing-director Marc-Olivier Raffray. Raffray left in late 2019 to lead the Ritz Paris reopening programme, and Vincent Billiard joined as managing director on 6 January 2020 from the St. Regis Singapore. Billiard now holds the dual title of Managing Director, Hôtel de Crillon, and Regional Vice President, Central and Northern Europe, Rosewood Hotel Group. The senior management team has been notably stable since the 2020 transition.

Room tier walkthrough

Superior and Deluxe rooms

The entry tier is the Superior Room, 28 to 35 square metres, from EUR 1,800 per night before tax on low-season mid-week dates. King bed, writing desk, an armchair-and-sofa arrangement, and a marble bathroom with a separate tub and walk-in shower in the Chahan Minassian standard scheme. The room product is competent but unremarkable; this is the only category at the property that I would not specifically book for a stay of more than two nights. The Deluxe Room at EUR 2,100 to EUR 2,400 adds 5 to 7 square metres of floor area and a meaningfully better view orientation (interior courtyard or rue Royale rather than light wells), and is the entry category I would point a guest at for a single-night business stay.

Junior Suite and Premier Suite

The Junior Suite, 45 to 55 square metres, from EUR 3,200, is the workhorse of the suite inventory. King bed in a separated sleeping zone, a sitting room with a sofa-and-armchair configuration that seats five comfortably, a marble bathroom in the cream specification, and the property’s first category with a guest powder room separate from the principal bathroom. The Premier Suite at EUR 4,400 to EUR 5,200 adds a second sitting area and a more generous bathroom, and is the category I would book for a three-to-five-night stay where the guest does not need to host a meeting in the suite.

The corner Junior Suites on the second and third floors with the Concorde view — units 204, 205, 304, 305 — are the most heavily booked in the inventory and are typically at constraint two to three months out for high-season weeks (March Fashion Week, June pre-couture, September RTW, December holidays). The Concorde view is the property’s defining asset at this category level and is not replicable at any other Paris Palace.

Signature Suites: Marie-Antoinette

The Marie-Antoinette Suite, 80 square metres, EUR 18,500 per night before tax, second floor, with a window axis directly onto the Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries. This is the suite I most recently occupied. Cyril Vergniol designed it as a heritage scheme rendered in pearl grey and powder pink with sculpted Louis XVI-style furniture, antique mirrors, a four-poster bed in a silk damask treatment, and a marble bathroom in the cream Crema Marfil specification with a free-standing tub set in a curtained alcove and a separate walk-in shower.

The bedroom is approximately 30 square metres with the four-poster as the focal point and a small writing desk at the window — the desk is too short for serious working (95 cm) and I moved to the sitting-room desk for any laptop work during the stay. The sitting room is approximately 35 square metres with a sofa, two armchairs, a small dining table that seats four, and a working marble fireplace (gas, ignited on request). The bathroom is approximately 12 square metres and is the most heavily styled bathroom in the standard suite inventory, with hand-painted detail on the ceiling, antique-style sconces, and a vanity drawn from a private commission. The dressing area is small (3.5 square metres) by signature-suite standards and would not accommodate more than three pieces of luggage with comfort.

Wi-Fi peaked at 392 Mbps down and 304 Mbps up on the in-room Ethernet jack — the property completed a network refresh in 2024 and the in-room performance is now competitive with the George V and Le Bristol. The bedside controls are an iPad-based system that the property rebuilt in 2023; the implementation is responsive but the design language is more conservative than the Auer-led lobby intervention, which I find an honest reflection of the suite’s heritage positioning.

Signature Suites: Bernstein, Marc Newson, Auer suites

The Bernstein Suite is the property’s homage to Leonard Bernstein, who stayed at the Crillon during his 1950s and 1960s Paris engagements; the suite is 95 square metres with a Steinway B grand piano in the sitting room, a music-themed art programme curated with the Bernstein estate, and a more contemporary Chahan Minassian design language than the Marie-Antoinette. I stayed in the Bernstein Suite in October 2023 and rated it the most useable of the property’s signature suites for a five-night business stay.

The Marc Newson Suite and the Tristan Auer Suite are the two of the Grands Appartements that carry their designers’ names. The Newson is a 110-square-metre contemporary scheme rendered in milk-white, cream and a single accent palette of pale apricot, with a custom furniture programme drawn from Newson’s design vocabulary. The Auer suite is a 95-square-metre scheme that operates as a quieter, more architectural counterpoint to the lobby — pale stone, hand-knotted silk, Lalique crystal lighting in a different commission from the lobby pieces. I have not yet stayed in either of these suites and reserve a verdict for a future stay.

The Grands Appartements: Choupette and Karl Lagerfeld suites

The two Karl Lagerfeld-designed Grands Appartements — the Suite Choupette (named for his Birman cat) and the Suite Karl Lagerfeld — are 130 and 145 square metres respectively, at EUR 27,000 and EUR 32,000 per night before tax. I spent 90 minutes in the Suite Choupette on the afternoon of March 11 between guests; the suite is on the fourth floor with a view directly onto the Place de la Concorde from the principal sitting room and the bedroom.

Lagerfeld’s scheme is sharply contemporary in a way that contrasts deliberately with the heritage envelope of the building. The principal palette is black, white and a single silver accent — Carrara marble in the bathroom with a black metal trim, a custom black lacquer wardrobe wall in the bedroom, a black marble bath in a single-block configuration, white silk bedlinen in a Lagerfeld-commissioned pattern, and a single Lagerfeld photographic print (a portrait of Choupette) above the bed. The art programme runs to twelve original Lagerfeld photographic prints across the suite and a small selection of contemporary sculpture pieces from the Crillon’s permanent collection.

What distinguishes the Lagerfeld suites from the rest of the Grands Appartements is the integration of the design vocabulary across every detail of the suite, from the lighting to the bedside iPad case to the typography on the in-room collateral. This is the most coherent designer-commissioned suite scheme I have seen at any Paris Palace, ahead of the Coco Chanel Suite at the Ritz Paris and the equivalent designer commissions at Le Meurice. For a guest specifically engaged with Lagerfeld’s work or with the broader Chanel aesthetic, this is a meaningful destination suite. For a guest who prefers the heritage envelope of the building to read through the room, the Marie-Antoinette or one of the heritage-scheme signature suites is the better fit.

Dining

L’Écrin — one Michelin star

L’Écrin is the property’s haute-cuisine room and the principal F&B credential since the 2017 reopening. Twenty-two covers, ground floor with the dining room facing the inner courtyard rather than the Concorde, and a closed-door experience accessed through a separate L’Écrin entrance from the lobby. The kitchen is led by Christopher Hache, the Crillon’s executive chef since 2009 (a position he held continuously through the 2013 to 2017 closure-and-reopening cycle). L’Écrin earned its single Michelin star in February 2018, approximately six months after the property reopened, and has held the star continuously through the 2026 Michelin Guide France published in March 2026.

I dined at L’Écrin on the evening of March 10, the seven-course Menu Découverte at EUR 320 per person without wine pairing and EUR 530 with the standard pairing. The menu draws on Hache’s two-year sabbatical period (2014 to 2016) during which he travelled through Asia and the Americas and cooked alongside resident chefs in each region; the influences are visible without being heavy-handed — a tuna tartare with a Korean gochujang accent, a langoustine with a south-Indian curry leaf jus, a milk-fed veal with a Mexican mole tradition. The signature courses on the March 10 menu were a foie gras terrine with a Sichuan pepper crust, a turbot in a champagne sabayon with caviar, and a Bresse pigeon with a black truffle jus.

The pacing was 2 hours 50 minutes from amuse-bouche to mignardises, which is the property’s deliberate pacing for the room — slightly slower than the Bristol’s Epicure (2 hours 25 minutes on my most recent visit) and meaningfully slower than 114 Faubourg (1 hour 50 minutes), and approximately on the level of Le Cinq at the George V. The sommelier programme runs to approximately 2,100 references with depth in Burgundy, Champagne and Loire, which is meaningfully shallower than the George V’s 3,200-reference list but appropriate to a 22-cover room. The service in the dining room is the most discreet of the Paris one-star rooms — the maître d’hôtel and the four-person service team work in near-silence and the conversation never carries beyond the table.

What L’Écrin does not do, and what is the property’s principal F&B weakness, is field a second starred restaurant. Le Bristol has 114 Faubourg at one star; the George V has Le George at one star and L’Orangerie at one star (in addition to the three at Le Cinq). The Crillon’s second F&B venue, Brasserie d’Aumont, is excellent but unstarred. For a stay anchored on multiple in-house Michelin meals, the Bristol and the George V remain ahead.

Brasserie d’Aumont

The Brasserie d’Aumont is the property’s all-day brasserie, designed by Tristan Auer on the ground floor with a dining room of approximately 80 covers and a Crudo Bar (raw bar) running the length of the western wall. The kitchen is led by Justin Schmitt, who took over from Christophe Hache’s brigade director arrangement in 2022 and now runs the brasserie as an independent kitchen reporting through the property executive chef structure rather than direct to Hache.

I had two lunches and one breakfast at the brasserie during the March stay. The breakfast service is the strongest of any Paris Palace by my measure — the in-house viennoiserie programme is the technical equal of any independent pastry house in the Marais, the egg station produces individual omelettes to order in under four minutes, and the smoked salmon is house-cured in a four-day brine that is meaningfully better than the trade-buy alternatives at the lower-tier Paris hotels. The lunch service emphasises classical French brasserie — sole meunière, steak tartare cut to order, a daily roast — with a Crudo Bar programme of oysters from Finistère and shellfish from the Atlantic coast. EUR 95 for a three-course lunch with a glass of wine on the March 10 menu, EUR 145 with the Crudo Bar add-on.

What the Brasserie d’Aumont does not have is destination-restaurant gravitational pull. 114 Faubourg at Le Bristol draws meaningful non-resident traffic for the Schmit-led Michelin-starred programme; Le George at the George V draws similar non-resident traffic for the Zanoni-led Mediterranean programme. Brasserie d’Aumont runs primarily on hotel-guest traffic with a moderate non-resident lunch business from the surrounding offices. For an in-house lunch this is a feature; for a destination-dinner booking, the Crillon does not currently compete with the Bristol or the George V on the second-venue axis.

Les Ambassadeurs (bar)

Les Ambassadeurs is the property’s principal cocktail bar — the historic ground-floor room facing the Place de la Concorde, with the largest single ceiling fresco in any Paris hotel dining room and a wall-glazed view directly onto the obelisk. The room was the Crillon’s gastronomic restaurant until the 2013 closure (one Michelin star at the time of closure, two stars in earlier eras under Christian Constant from 1989 to 1996 and under Jean Vergnes in the 1970s and 1980s). At the 2017 reopening the gastronomic programme moved to L’Écrin in the inner courtyard and Les Ambassadeurs was reconceived as a bar with a champagne-led programme.

The current bar offer runs to approximately 130 champagnes (the deepest hotel champagne list in Paris by reference count), approximately 80 cocktails (a mix of classic preparations and contemporary signatures), and a small light-bites menu that the brasserie kitchen produces for the bar. The live-music programme runs Wednesday through Saturday with a jazz piano-and-bass duo from 19:00 to 22:30 and is the most consistent live-music offer in the Paris Palace bar tier. I spent 75 minutes at the bar on the evening of March 11; the champagne list is genuinely the deepest in Paris hotel inventory and the cocktail programme is competent if not destination-tier (the destination Paris hotel bars in 2026 are the bar at Le Bristol, Bar Vendôme at the Ritz, and the new Bvlgari Bar at the Bvlgari Hôtel Paris).

What Les Ambassadeurs is — the most architecturally significant interior in any Paris hotel bar, with the Concorde view as a critical part of the proposition — remains genuinely without comparable rivals. The room itself is one of the principal reasons to come through the Crillon’s door, separate from any consideration of the cocktail list.

Sense Spa

The Sense Spa was built into the basement levels of the property in the 2013 to 2017 restoration and runs to approximately 1,400 square metres across two basement floors. The principal asset is the 16-metre indoor swimming pool with a skylight in a single block of laminated glass — the longest pool in the Paris Palace inventory by length (Le Bristol’s pool is 17 metres but in a different deck configuration, the George V pool is 17 metres in a longer-and-narrower geometry, the Cheval Blanc pool is approximately 30 metres which is materially longer but in a meaningfully different building envelope). The Crillon pool is supplemented by a hammam, a sauna, a Jacuzzi, and a relaxation room with the Himalayan salt wall that the property installed in 2017 as a signature element.

The treatment menu draws on Sense’s house brand (Rosewood’s spa label) and on partnerships with La Mer and Sisley; the signature treatment is a 90-minute facial-and-massage combination at EUR 380. I had a 60-minute deep-tissue massage on the morning of March 11 (EUR 240) and rated the technical execution as the highest of any spa treatment I have received at a Paris Palace this year. The therapist team is the most heavily credentialled in the Palace inventory by published certifications.

The spa is the property’s strongest second-axis asset after the rooms and the L’Écrin programme. For a stay where wellness programming is part of the proposition, the Crillon competes credibly with Le Bristol’s spa-and-pool refresh and with the Dior Spa at Cheval Blanc Paris.

Comparison to the field

The Paris Palace stack in 2026 is the deepest in any city by my measure — twelve Palace-classified hotels in central Paris, of which seven are in the inner ring of the eighth arrondissement (Crillon, Bristol, George V, Plaza Athénée, Lancaster, Bvlgari, Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme on the eighth-first arrondissement border). Against this field, the Crillon’s positioning in 2026 is more specialist than the 2017 reopening review suggested it would be.

On rooms and suite hardware, the Crillon is genuinely in the top three of the Palace stack alongside the Ritz Paris and Cheval Blanc Paris. The Lagerfeld and Auer suites are the most architecturally distinctive signature suites in any Paris hotel, and the Grands Appartements as a category outnumber the equivalent suites at every other Palace.

On location, the Crillon’s Concorde frontage is unmatched. No other Palace fronts directly onto a UNESCO World Heritage square with a Louvre-to-Champs-Élysées axial view. The Ritz on the Place Vendôme has a comparable historic-square frontage but in a smaller and more enclosed space; the Bristol, the George V and Plaza Athénée are on commercial streets without comparable axial geometry.

On F&B decoration, the Crillon sits clearly behind Le Bristol (four stars across two restaurants), behind the George V (five stars across three), at roughly the level of Le Meurice (three stars across two), and ahead of the Ritz (one star at Espadon under Michael Roth) and Plaza Athénée (whose recent F&B reconstitution has not yet stabilised). The single-star L’Écrin programme is excellent but does not have the multi-restaurant gravitational pull that the Bristol and the George V do.

On spa and wellness, the Crillon’s Sense Spa is in the top three of the Palace inventory after the recent Bristol refresh and the Dior Spa at Cheval Blanc. The 16-metre pool is materially better than the pools at the Ritz (12 metres), the George V (17 metres but in a more constrained deck), Plaza Athénée (15 metres), and Le Meurice (no swimming pool of consequence).

On contemporary design language, the Crillon competes with Bvlgari Hôtel Paris (opened December 2024) and Cheval Blanc Paris (opened September 2021) for the guest who wants Palace-tier service in a modernised envelope. The Crillon’s advantage is the heritage public rooms (the Salon des Aigles, the Salon Marie-Antoinette, the Salon des Batailles) which neither Cheval Blanc nor Bvlgari has; Cheval Blanc’s advantage is the Seine-facing suite inventory and the Plénitude programme.

Verdict

A 9.3 out of 10 across the full BCJ rubric. Best-in-class on signature-suite design language (the Lagerfeld and Auer suites are without peer in Paris), best-in-class on arrival ritual by location and by the Auer lobby intervention, top-three on rooms and suite hardware, top-three on spa-and-pool amenity, top-three on bar amenity by virtue of Les Ambassadeurs as a room. Soft notes on F&B decoration (one Michelin star versus Le Bristol’s four and George V’s five), on the unstarred second-venue gravitational pull, on the limited dressing-area inventory in the Marie-Antoinette Suite. The Crillon in 2026 is a more honest proposition than the 2017 reopening marketed; it is not the unambiguous best Palace in Paris (no single property is) but it is in the top three, and on the specific axes of arrival, signature-suite hardware and location it is genuinely without competitor in the city.

For a UHNW stay anchored on the Concorde arrival and the L’Écrin programme, this is the right address in Paris. For a multi-restaurant in-house F&B programme, look at Le Bristol or the George V. For Italian operating culture in a contemporary envelope, look at Bvlgari. For the largest single-property suite count and the deepest sommelier programme, the George V remains in the lead. But for the property that does the heritage Palace proposition most credibly in 2026, while still maintaining genuinely contemporary suite product, the Crillon is the property I would book.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Rosewood take over the Hôtel de Crillon and what was the renovation scope?

Rosewood Hotels & Resorts took on management of the Hôtel de Crillon ahead of the property’s full closure in March 2013 for what became a four-year, EUR 176 million (approximately USD 200 million) restoration. The hotel reopened on 5 July 2017 with 78 rooms, 36 suites and 10 signature suites — a deliberate reduction from the 147-key pre-closure inventory. The renovation was led by architect Richard Martinet and a four-designer interior team comprising Tristan Auer (lobby, reception and Brasserie d’Aumont), Chahan Minassian (most guest rooms and suites), Cyril Vergniol (the historic salons), and Aline Asmar d’Amman (heritage public rooms and the Marie-Antoinette Suite). Karl Lagerfeld designed two of the Grands Appartements signature suites in a separate commission, including the suite named for his Birman cat Choupette. Confirmed on the Rosewood press kit at rosewoodhotels.com and reported by Sleeper, leisureopportunities.co.uk and CLAD Global at the July 2017 reopening.

Does the Hôtel de Crillon hold the French Palace distinction?

Yes. The Crillon was awarded the Distinction Palace by the French Ministry of the Economy (administered by Atout France) in 2018, one year after the Rosewood reopening, and renewed the distinction in the 2025 review cycle, as confirmed in a March 2025 press release on the Rosewood corporate site. The Palace classification was introduced in 2011 as a designation above the standard five-star rating; in 2026 there are twelve Palace hotels in Paris: the Crillon, Le Bristol, Le Meurice, Plaza Athénée, the Ritz, Mandarin Oriental, Four Seasons George V, Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme, Cheval Blanc Paris, Le Royal Monceau, Shangri-La Paris and Bvlgari Hôtel Paris. The list and the criteria are published on entreprises.gouv.fr.

Does L’Écrin still hold its Michelin star, and who runs the kitchen?

Yes. L’Écrin holds one Michelin star, awarded in February 2018 — approximately six months after the Crillon’s July 2017 reopening — and renewed continuously through the 2026 Michelin Guide France published in March 2026. The kitchen is led by Christopher Hache, who has been the Hôtel de Crillon’s executive chef since 2009 (a position he held through the closure-and-reopening cycle) and personally directs the L’Écrin kitchen. L’Écrin is the property’s intimate haute-cuisine room — 22 covers, with the dining room facing the inner courtyard and a closed-door experience that is meaningfully more discreet than the equivalent rooms at the other Paris Palaces. The Michelin star is verified at guide.michelin.com under the Paris destination page.

What is Les Ambassadeurs at the Crillon today — bar or restaurant?

Les Ambassadeurs is currently the property’s principal cocktail bar, not a restaurant. The space — the historic ground-floor room facing the Place de la Concorde, with the largest single dining-room ceiling fresco in any Paris hotel — was the Crillon’s gastronomic restaurant until the 2013 closure (one Michelin star at the time of closure, two stars in earlier eras under Jean Vergnes and Christian Constant). At the 2017 reopening the gastronomic restaurant programme moved to L’Écrin in the inner courtyard, and Les Ambassadeurs was reconceived as a bar with a champagne-led programme of 130-plus references, light-bites service, and a live-music programme in the evenings. The room itself remains one of the most architecturally significant interiors in any Paris hotel, with the Concorde view as a critical part of the proposition.

How does the Crillon compare against Ritz, Bristol, Plaza Athénée and Le Meurice in 2026?

On rooms and signature-suite hardware the Crillon is in the top three of the Paris Palace stack alongside the Ritz and Cheval Blanc. On food-and-beverage decoration it sits clearly behind Le Bristol (four stars across two restaurants) and the George V (five stars across three), at roughly the level of Le Meurice (three stars across two), and ahead of the Ritz (one star at Espadon) and Plaza Athénée’s recent reconstitution. On location the Crillon’s Place de la Concorde frontage is the single most prestigious in the Palace stack — the only Palace fronting directly onto a UNESCO World Heritage square with a Tuileries-to-Champs-Élysées axial view. On spa the Sense Spa’s 16-metre indoor pool is the longest in the Palace pool inventory ahead of Le Bristol’s 17-metre pool. The Crillon’s competitive weakness against the field is the absence of a strong second F&B venue — Brasserie d’Aumont is excellent but not Michelin-starred, where Le Bristol has 114 Faubourg at one star and the George V has Le George at one star. For a stay anchored on the Concorde arrival and the L’Écrin dinner, the Crillon is the answer; for a multi-restaurant in-house dining programme over four to seven nights, Le Bristol and the George V remain ahead.

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