Le Bristol Paris – a hundred years on Faubourg Saint-Honoré

Le Bristol Paris opened in 1925 and turned a hundred in 2025. With the largest garden of all the palace hotels, a pool on the top floor and its own bakery with a mill, this is the place for those who want Paris's calmest luxury.

Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré in the 8th arrondissement of Paris is a street of fashion houses, galleries and embassies, with the Élysée presidential palace as its neighbour. At number 112 lies Le Bristol, behind a glass canopy with wrought-iron details and flower boxes. The building turned one hundred years old in 2025 and has, throughout its century, been the discreet alternative among the palace hotels: less famous than the Ritz, but with a garden that no other palace hotel in the city can match.

From private theatre to art deco hotel

The plot was developed in the 1700s with a townhouse palace that was purchased in 1829 by Count Jules de Castellane. He had a private theatre built in the house – a hall that later became the hotel's winter restaurant until 2011. After several years of decline, the entrepreneur Hippolyte Jammet bought the palace in 1923 and had it rebuilt in Art Deco style with the architects Gustave Umbdenstock and Urbain Cassan. The hotel officially opened in April 1925. The name is a tribute to Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, a British traveller with a penchant for luxury.

Occupation and room 106

In June 1940 Jammet reached an agreement with the US ambassador William C. Bullitt to turn the hotel into a residential annexe for the embassy. This is why Le Bristol became one of the few major hotels in Paris that the Germans did not requisition. In room 106, the Jewish architect Léo Lehrman was kept hidden during the occupation. At night, when the hotel was empty, he secretly drew up plans for the hotel's future renovations – including the wrought-iron lift. The 210 employees kept the secret.

After the liberation in 1944, the house became a meeting place for diplomats, and the Turkish embassy was based here for a year. In 1962, the American Fielding's Travel Guide to Europe ranked Le Bristol as number one, which made the hotel famous in the USA.

The Oetker family, the garden and the pool

In 1978, Rudolf-August Oetker, head of the German industrial group Dr. Oetker, bought the hotel. The following year, a new wing was built facing the garden on the site of an old monastery, and then came the two things that define the house today: the garden of around 1,200 square metres, the largest private garden among Paris's palace hotels, and the teak pool on the sixth floor with views over the rooftops towards Sacré-Cœur. In 2009, the hotel expanded with the neighbouring building and gained the restaurant 114 Faubourg.

The lobby is adorned with paintings and sculptures from the 1700s and 1800s, bought in the 1930s at an auction from the Louvre's storerooms, and with two large tapestries. Today the hotel has 188 rooms, of which 100 are suites, according to Wikipedia. The Suite Panoramique was a backdrop in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.

Épicure, 114 Faubourg and the mill

Le Bristol has two restaurants with stars: Épicure with three stars in the Guide Michelin 2026 and the brasserie 114 Faubourg with one. Café Antonia serves from breakfast to dinner, and Bar du Bristol is open in the evenings. In 2019, the hotel installed its own mill to grind flour from old wheat varieties for its bread, and the same year the house's own chocolate workshop opened.

The neighbourhood around Le Bristol

From the hotel, you can reach the fashion houses on rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré on foot, and in ten minutes you're on avenue Matignon or at the Champs-Élysées. The streets in the area can be found on VERA PI's page about the 8th arrondissement. If you want to compare with the other grand houses, you'll find them in our guide to Paris's palace hotels.

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