Hôtel Plaza Athénée
A Dorchester Collection grande dame on Avenue Montaigne: Regency and Art Deco suites, a Dior Spa, and Jean Imbert's Michelin-starred dining room.
Some hotels whisper; the Hôtel Plaza Athénée was never built to whisper. On Avenue Montaigne, in the thick of Paris’s couture quarter, it has spent more than a century as the address fashion checks into, and it has the screen credits to match, from the finale of Sex and the City to a turn in The Devil Wears Prada.
Inside, the glamour is unembarrassed: chandeliers, white marble, the famous geranium-red awnings, flowers by the armful. Rooms come in two moods (Regency or Art Deco), and the much-quoted pillow menu is, we promise, entirely real.
The hotel is part of the Dorchester Collection. Downstairs, the Dior Spa (the house’s first spa in Europe) handles face and body with characteristic precision. The Plaza Athénée’s main dining room is now Jean Imbert au Plaza Athénée, a Michelin-starred kitchen where Imbert revives centuries-old French recipes around a vast pink-marble Royal Table.
Step out and the designer boutiques of Avenue Montaigne are quite literally on the doorstep, which is either a convenience or a hazard depending on your discipline.
This is luxury at full volume, and unapologetic about it. For travellers who want their Paris stay theatrical, central and dressed for the occasion, the Plaza Athénée remains one of the city’s defining grandes dames.
