Hotel Les Trois Rois – Basel's oldest address, remade for 2025

On the left bank of the Rhine, a few paces from Basel's Mittlere Brücke, Hotel Les Trois Rois has kept its doors open on the same ground since the seventeenth century. With a history dating back to 1681, the house is one of the oldest urban hotels in Europe, and its neoclassical front still carries the 1844 design of Basel architect Amadeus Merian. Behind that façade, a two-year transformation delivered a redesigned head building in 2025 by Herzog & de Meuron, unveiled in time for Art Basel in mid-June. The MICHELIN Guide awards the hotel Three Keys, its mark of outstanding character and service, while inside, chef Peter Knogl has run the Cheval Blanc kitchen since 2007 and now holds Three MICHELIN Stars, one of only four such kitchens in the country. A second dining room, a cigar lounge carved from ceramic and walnut, and a rooftop wellness retreat complete a hotel that keeps adding chapters without losing its oldest ones.

01The house

A guest house on this bend of the Rhine is recorded as early as 1255, under the name domus zem blumen in vico crucis, though it had to be demolished after the 1356 Basel earthquake. The first surviving record of an inn called the Three Kings on the same plot dates from 1681, a name taken from the biblical magi whose figures still stand on the façade. In 1841 and 1842 the master tailor Johann Jakob Senn bought the estate, had the old buildings torn down and commissioned Amadeus Merian's design; the new hotel opened its doors on 16 February 1844.

In 1936 the owners stepped back from day-to-day running and appointed directors for the first time. The modern chapter began in 2004, when the Straumann family acquired the Drei Könige and the adjoining building at Blumenrain 2, restoring the historic fabric with Basel architect Christian Lang before reopening in March 2006. Herzog & de Meuron, the Basel practice that designed the hotel's newest rooms, describes the building today as one of Europe's oldest grand hotels, with its 1844 structure later updated between 2004 and 2006. The most recent redesign touched the annex on Schifflände, giving it a distinct identity from the original main house and unveiling new suites, a dining room, a banquet hall and a wellness floor in 2025.

02Rooms and suites

The hotel counts 82 rooms and suites in traditional style, blending antique furniture with high-tech infrastructure, spread across two addresses: the historic main building at Blumenrain 8 and the redesigned head building at Blumenrain 2. Rooms either look out over the Rhine or sit above the lanes of Basel's Old Town, and the 2025 renovation added new categories including the Suite des Rois and a set of Junior Suites in the rebuilt annex.

Insider tip

Steps from the Mittlere Brücke and Basel's Old Town museum quarter.

The split between old and new is deliberate: guests can choose the panelled, chandeliered rooms of the 1844 house or the lighter, more contemporary spaces shaped by Herzog & de Meuron in the former bank building next door, a layout the hotel itself describes as combining the best of both worlds.

03Where to eat

Cheval Blanc by Peter Knogl is the hotel's flagship table and the only Three-MICHELIN-Star restaurant in Basel. Knogl has been at the stove since 2007, took his first star within months of arriving, a second the following year, and has held three stars since 2015 — one of only four chefs in Switzerland to do so. The kitchen also carries 19 GaultMillau points, the dining room seats around thirty guests at a time, and the cellar runs to roughly 800 wines, including a deep selection from Château Cheval Blanc, the Saint-Émilion estate that lends the restaurant its name.

Brasserie Les Trois Rois, the more relaxed of the hotel's tables, serves Swiss and French classics made with market-fresh ingredients and carries 15 GaultMillau points alongside a MICHELIN Plate distinction. In September 2025 the hotel added Banks, a conversion of a former financial building into a restaurant and cocktail room dressed in pink and purple velvet, conceived as Basel's newest social hub.

04The bar and The Council

Bar Les Trois Rois sits beneath a terrace over the Rhine, where chef de bar Thomas Huhn mixes classics such as a Vesper and a Knob Creek Old Fashioned alongside a long list of independent whisky bottlers and Japanese rarities. The bar was named Switzerland's Bar of the Year in 2015 and won the Mixology Bar Award the same year, and a pianist still plays through many evenings.

Downstairs, The Council opened on 17 October 2024 as the hotel's new cigar lounge, the first completed piece of the Herzog & de Meuron renovation. The 40-square-metre room is lined with 570 handcrafted ceramic tiles rising seven metres, framed by etched oak panels and bronze plate, with red velvet sofas, walnut tables and two fireplaces; a walk-in humidor nearby holds some 135 cigar selections, mostly Cuban.

05Seijaku, the wellbeing floor

High above the rooftops, in a space designed by Herzog & de Meuron, Seijaku — 'place of serenity' — opened as part of the 2025 renovation, built around the Japanese ideas of Yasuragi, Ki and Ichigo-Ichie: harmony, energy and the art of living in the moment. The floor holds massage rooms, saunas and a steam bath, reserved exclusively for hotel guests daily from 10.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m., with the gym open around the clock.

Treatments are built around base massages of 25, 60 or 90 minutes, which can be extended with 30-minute add-ons chosen with the therapy team — a quieter, considerably less ornamented counterpoint to the gilt of the 1844 rooms below.

06The neighbourhood

The hotel stands directly on the Rhine in Basel's Old Town, close to the Mittlere Brücke and a short walk from the Basler Münster. Art runs deep here: Basel is the original venue for Art Basel and home to the Fondation Beyeler, the Kunstmuseum, the Tinguely Museum and the Vitra Design Museum, all within easy reach of Blumenrain 8 — one reason the 2025 renovation was timed to finish for the fair's June opening.

07Making the most of a stay

The guestbook carries its own history lesson. In July 1789, Jacques Necker, finance minister to Louis XVI, arrived at the hotel with a large entourage after being dismissed by the king; a royal courier reached him there days later asking him to return to Versailles, a reversal with consequences for the French Revolution. Since then the hotel has hosted Napoleon, Queen Elizabeth II, Pablo Picasso and Thomas Mann, among others, and the current General Manager, Mark Jacob, who took the helm in September 2024, now leads a team of around 200 staff from 38 countries.

Day visitors are welcome for lunch at Cheval Blanc, coffee in The Council, or an aperitif at the bar — useful to know for anyone wanting a taste of Les Trois Rois without booking a room.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.