Le Plaza Athénée – the palace that dresses Paris in red

On avenue Montaigne in Paris's 8th arrondissement, Le Plaza Athénée has worn the same crimson awnings and geranium-filled balconies since it opened its doors on 20 April 1913, to designs by architect Charles Lefebvre in the cut-stone, wrought-iron manner of Haussmann's city. Few hotel addresses carry the French capital's fashion history quite so visibly: Christian Dior opened his first boutique a few steps along the avenue in 1947, and the street has stayed the country's couture mile ever since. Behind a façade dressed with some 1,900 red geraniums sit 154 rooms and 54 suites, a Michelin-starred dining room, the 1936 brasserie Le Relais Plaza and a Dior-run spa. The MICHELIN Guide awards Le Plaza Athénée Three Keys, its highest distinction, while the hotel's gastronomic restaurant, La Grande Table du Plaza Athénée, holds One Star.

01The house

The hotel's beginnings were almost comic. In 1911, hotelier Jules Cadillat set out to build a grand establishment on the newly fashionable avenue, commissioning architect Charles Lefebvre for an eclectic Parisian building with a cut-stone façade and wrought-iron balconies, giving the address the manners of a Haussmann-era palace just as Paris entered the modern age. The planned spring 1913 opening nearly stalled when a rival contested the use of the name 'Plaza'; general manager Gustave Émile Armbruster added 'Athénée', and the hotel finally opened on 20 April 1913. Success came quickly: the hotel doubled in size during the Roaring Twenties, and in 1936 the Art Deco brasserie Le Relais Plaza was added. Eleven years later, in 1947, Christian Dior opened his first boutique across the avenue, and Le Plaza Athénée became the fashion world's unofficial headquarters. The hotel joined Dorchester Collection in 2001, when designer Patrick Jouin reworked the bar into one of the city's most talked-about rooms.

02Rooms and suites

Behind the balconies, the hotel's 208 rooms are split between two moods: classical Parisian interiors in soft, serene tones, and a sleeker Art Deco register by designers Bruno Moinard and Claire Bétaille, whose recent renovation has refreshed the house room by room. Some keep their original wrought-iron balconies, with views that run straight down the avenue to the Eiffel Tower. At the top of the range, the Royal Suite spreads across 450 square metres on the fifth floor with four bedrooms and sweeping Paris views, taking luxury to its furthest extreme among the hotel's accommodation. The two Eiffel Suites follow different scripts — one Art Deco, one dressed in eighteenth-century grandeur with haute-couture touches — but both look straight across the rooftops towards the tower itself, and the Art Deco L'Appartement adds its own private terrace.

Insider tip

Nearest Métro: Alma-Marceau. The gastronomic restaurant keeps a jacket-preferred dress code.

03Where to eat

French gastronomy has a long occupancy here. In 2000, Alain Ducasse chose the hotel to establish his haute-cuisine restaurant, and the dining room built for him — a grand Royal Table in antique Breccia pink marble, beneath a gilded ceiling set with 20,000 gold leaves, designed by Rémi Tessier — remains the stage for the hotel's Michelin-starred restaurant today, now known as La Grande Table du Plaza Athénée. Executive chef Jocelyn Herland leads dining across the hotel, with Anthony Di Prospero heading this particular kitchen and restaurant director Denis Courtiade, more than twenty years at the hotel, choreographing service.

Elsewhere, Le Relais Plaza has kept its Art Deco room, first decorated by Constant Lefranc when the brasserie opened in 1936, as one of Paris's enduring 'it' addresses, with chef Victoria Boller now at its stoves. The courtyard restaurant La Cour Jardin turns the hotel's leafy inner garden into open-air dining through the warmer months, while La Terrasse Montaigne lines the avenue itself for lunch and people-watching. Inside, La Galerie serves breakfast and light lunches through the day, with an afternoon tea created by pastry champion Angelo Musa, accompanied, as tradition dictates, by live harp.

04The bar

Le Bar was remade in 2001 by designer Patrick Jouin into one of the hotel's most photographed rooms, its ceiling draped in flowing fabric. Its centrepiece is a Dom Pérignon cellar — a lit display spanning white, rosé and vintage bottles up to Jeroboam and Mathusalem formats, created by designer Nicolas Francart — overseen today by bar director Benoit Marin.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Dior Spa Plaza Athénée carries real weight: the House of Dior chose it for its first European spa in 2008, continuing a relationship that began in 1946 when the couturier opened his first store opposite the hotel. A complete redesign unveiled in September 2023 added five treatment rooms, a couple's treatment room, sauna and hammam, plus a Dior Light Suite using light therapy to help reset circadian rhythms and ease jet lag — a first for a Parisian palace spa. In October 2026 the spa was listed as open Monday to Wednesday and Friday to Sunday from 10am to 8pm, with extended Thursday hours until 10pm.

06The neighbourhood

The hotel shares its birth year with its neighbour: in 1913 the avenue gained both the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the hotel, a pairing that helped create the street's fame. Dior's house sits almost directly across the avenue, and the Golden Triangle's other couture names line the surrounding blocks. The Eiffel Tower, the Seine and the Champs-Élysées are all a short walk away, and the hotel sits just 30 minutes from the Eurostar terminal.

07Making the most of a stay

The gastronomic restaurant keeps an elegant dress code, with jackets preferred for gentlemen, and closes annually between 24 and 28 December. The nearest Métro station is Alma-Marceau, a minute's walk from the front door and one stop from the Champs-Élysées.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.