Cheval Blanc Paris – a palace built inside a department store

Cheval Blanc Paris occupies the riverside wing of La Samaritaine, the department store whose Art Deco silhouette has watched over the Pont Neuf since Frantz Jourdain and Henri Sauvage finished its steel-framed structure in 1928, with the best river views reserved for what is now the hotel. It opened on 7 September 2021 under LVMH's Cheval Blanc label, the brand's first city address and the first hotel ever designed by American architect Peter Marino, who layered colour and craftsmanship over Edouard François's restoration of the historic façade. Just 72 rooms and suites occupy the building, served by four restaurants carrying six MICHELIN stars between them: Plénitude, where chef Arnaud Donckele's cooking holds three stars; Hakuba, with two; and Le Tout-Paris, with one. The MICHELIN Guide also awards the house Three MICHELIN Keys, and in June 2026 Atout France granted it the official Palace label — a rare double recognition for a building where every window still frames the quai du Louvre and the bridge beyond.

01The house

The site has been synonymous with Parisian retail since the 1870s, but its present form dates from the early twentieth century, when architects Frantz Jourdain and Henri Sauvage finished the riverside wing in 1928, dressing their steel-framed structure in monumental Art Deco façades and setting aside that section for what enjoyed, even then, the finest views over the water. The founding Cognacq-Jay couple's charitable legacy later passed into the hands of the LVMH group, which spent more than a decade reimagining the building.

Following a design competition, LVMH appointed French architect Édouard François in 2010 to oversee the conversion, with New Yorker Peter Marino brought in to design the interiors. François's brief was conservation as much as invention: the Samaritaine's historic façade has been entirely preserved, while, less visibly, he threaded a new battery of lifts through a former lightwell to serve the hotel floors above the shop. The finished hotel opened on 7 September 2021 as the debut urban Maison for the Cheval Blanc brand, a name until then associated only with resort addresses in the Alps and the Caribbean.

02Rooms and suites

The Maison keeps its scale deliberately modest for a building this size: just 26 rooms and 46 suites, each treated by Marino as a private apartment rather than a standard hotel room, with panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows giving views of the Seine that stretch from the Eiffel Tower to Notre-Dame, a bold palette of colour and pattern, custom-made furniture and a considered art collection. Many rooms open onto glazed winter gardens rather than simple balconies, the kind of detail that turns a morning croissant or an evening bath into a small ritual with the rooftops of Paris as backdrop.

Insider tip

Four restaurants with six MICHELIN stars combined, a Dior Spa and the city's longest indoor pool.

At the top of the range sits an apartment conceived as a private residence rather than a suite: a duplex of roughly 1,000 square metres with terraces looking over the Seine, Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower, seven bedrooms each with its own bathroom and dressing room, two reception rooms, a private cinema and its own lift and parking space for confidential arrivals. It is, in effect, a house within the house, built for guests who want the hotel's address without ever crossing its public floors.

03Where to eat

Four kitchens operate under one roof, each with its own identity. Plénitude, the flagship dining room, is run by chef Arnaud Donckele, whose cooking has made the restaurant one of the most discussed tables in the city, a reputation reflected in its three MICHELIN stars. Hakuba, the hotel's Japanese room, holds two stars for a tightly ritualised menu served over a handful of evenings each week.

Le Tout-Paris, the hotel's brasserie, takes a looser, more public tone: steak frites and chicken burgers served on a terrace set against the city's skyline, with a seventh-floor mezzanine where, as part of Marino's design, diners can eat while looking directly out at the Pont Neuf. It carries one MICHELIN star of its own. Langosteria, the Italian table, completes the quartet with an evening-led menu and weekend lunches, the fourth voice in a dining programme built to move from casual to formal without leaving the building.

04The bar

Le Tout-Paris doubles as the hotel's main bar, a brasserie that fuses with a cocktail bar to hold the Parisian skyline from early morning until one in the morning, open every day of the week. For guests who would rather not leave their room at all, the hotel runs what it calls Carte Blanche: a room-service concept built around personalised requests, where almost anything can be ordered at any hour, set up against the winter garden rather than a standard trolley table.

05Spa and pool

The Dior Spa Cheval Blanc sits at the centre of the hotel's wellbeing offer, built around a 30-metre pool, sauna, hammam and a fully equipped fitness suite alongside Dior-curated treatment rooms, with round-the-clock Majordome service for guests who want their routine arranged rather than booked. Independent judges have gone further still: the World's 50 Best Hotels list credits the Maison with the longest indoor swimming pool in Paris, a claim that holds up against any of the capital's other grand addresses.

06The neighbourhood

Few hotels in Paris sit at a more literal crossroads of the city's history. The Louvre and Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Pompidou Centre and the Marais, Place Dauphine and Saint-Germain-des-Prés are all within easy walking distance, with the Pont Neuf itself passing directly beneath the hotel's restaurant terraces. The quays below are still lined with the secondhand booksellers that have traded along the Seine for generations, a daytime counterpoint to the hotel's more rarefied evenings.

07Making the most of a stay

Cheval Blanc Paris has built its reputation quickly: it was ranked 4th in The World's 50 Best Hotels in 2024, and in June 2026, five years after opening, Atout France named it an official Palace hotel, one of only three Paris addresses to join the classification that year alongside the Bulgari Hôtel Paris and Fouquet's. Beyond the restaurants and spa, Majordomes can arrange access across the wider LVMH universe — private appointments at Louis Vuitton, a tailored visit to the Dior Gallery, watchmaking masterclasses or wine tastings curated with Moët Hennessy Private — the kind of detail that turns a stay into something closer to membership of the house than an overnight booking.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.