Review: Le Bristol Paris, best hotel in France?

The best hotel in Paris as voted by hoteliers and visitors. Le Bristol is one of only 16 hotels in France that is distinguished by the ‘Palace’ status.Palace hotels are the crème de la crème of the best of the best of the most luxurious of luxury hotels in France. Get the idea?

Click here to check out what CNtraveller has to say about Palace Status hotels.

So does it live up to the hype? Kinda

Does my great photos do it justice? YES! 😛

THE FACADE

The classic Parisian building on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in the 8th arrondissement. It’s actually 2 buildings connected by a series of corridors. It looks classic but unremarkable. It’s not a building you’d look at twice.

GRAND ENTRANCE

If this area looks familiar, it’s because it’s features in the film Midnight in Paris. The entrance way feel very homely. Nothing stands out, it all just feels ‘right’. Every detail is of high quality.

The artworks around the foyer are mostly textile, and all were stunning.

The hotel’s theme is gold and marble, but restrained and not ‘Dubai’ bling. There is also a lot of grandma flower motifs for good measure, but it actually works a lot better than your average granny flat.

The check-in was a little confusing. We waited on one of these seats and was told that our room would be ready in 10 minutes. But they never got back to us.

When I asked again after 15 minutes, they told me it’d be 1 hour. But then immediate apologised and said my room was already ready. WTF?

In fact, service for the rest of my stay is keen, polite but very disorganised. Dinner reservation was missed, no one greeted us by our names during the entire stay, our luggage was briefly misplaced as we were checking out. Not what you expect when your room cost close to 2000 a night.

THE JUNIOR SUITE

The ‘butler’ who showed us to our room couldn’t stop talking:

‘We have upgraded you 3 levels to the junior suite’

‘its one of the best junior suites in the hotel’

‘your junior suite is wonderful’

‘i hope you like your junior suite’

‘here is your junior suite’

‘are you satisfied with your junior suite?’

They sure love saying the word ‘junior suite’

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Everything in the room had exquisite detail and weight. Everything was classy and understated. The best example is the curtains that feels like it’s woven from lead wool, it’s so soft, so plush and so heavy.

The bathroom is supersized. The photo doesn’t do it justice, but it’s literally bigger than our hotel room the night before.

Nothing look particularly luxuriously on first glance, but everything is of the finest quality. It’s understated finery at it’s best. This is the luxury can i live with.

CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

There are a few baked goods, some jam and coffee and tea. This costs about 100 euros.Lucky for us, it was included.Price aside, it was a pretty delish breakfast.

Surprisingly there is actually a rooftop pool in this hotel, but as you can imagine, it is tiny.

The pool was just big enough for 4 or 5 people to swim comfortably. There are only 6 chairs around the edges. There is a fresco that’s trying to give you the impression that you’re on the deck of a ship. Charming or tacky? I’ll let you decide.

There is an outdoor deck that you can peek to see the tall metal tower in the distance.