The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Plus ça change at the renewed Ritz Paris
The grand old hotel hopes that a four-year restoration will gain it ‘Palace’ status. Natasha Edwards is allowed an early look
Istepped carefully as builders continued fitting out spa treatment cabins, fixing doors, wheeling in furniture and unloading boxes into stillempty shops. After almost four years, Ritz Paris is finally preparing to open its doors to paying guests – just in time to welcome some of football’s wealthier fans in the city for Euro 2016. The hotel closed for refurbishment in August 2012 after failing to gain the much-coveted official palace status (a notch up from five stars). A few privileged habitués have been trying out rooms this week, with the first paying customers staying from Monday.
I was there this week for a sneak preview and it soon became clear that the reopened Ritz was playing on its heritage and literary credentials more than ever. As soon as it opened on the beautiful Place Vendôme on June 1 1898, César Ritz had an A-list of literary, artistic and aristocratic personalities staying at his hotel, all of whom installed their own mythology. Among them were Coco Chanel, who lived there from 1937-71; Marcel Proust, who came to the opening party, adored dining alone here and wrote part of In Search of Lost Time in bed in the hotel; the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson, whose portraits hang in the Duke of Windsor suite; and Ernest Hemingway, who liked to claim he had liberated the Ritz after the Second World War.
The listed Imperial Suite and the Prestige Suites are now dedicated to illustrious former residents such as F Scott Fitzgerald and Maria Callas. The hotel is also home to the world’s first Chanel spa, and the new Salon Proust, one of the few completely new rooms, provides an elegant backdrop to a distinctly French afternoon tea, with biscuits, bilberry tarts and, of course, madeleines de Proust. In the Hemingway Bar, with its memorabilia collected by cocktail barman Colin Field, there are original letters on Ritz-headed writing paper from Hemingway to his wife. A new social emphasis means the Ritz Bar will now open all day, transforming from breakfast and bistro-style lunch venue to evening bar, with convivial sofas and the curious rediscovered glass relief of the Château de Chantilly hidden behind the bottles; the Espadon restaurant, home to new chef Nicolas Sale, serves over the day breakfast, speedy lunch and gourmet dinner.
In converting the original 18thcentury Hôtel de Gramont, Swiss-born César Ritz, a wine waiter before managing the Grand Hotel in Monte Carlo and Savoy in London, brought a new level of luxury to Paris hotels. The Ritz was the city’s first to have lifts, and electricity, telephone and en-suite bathrooms in the rooms.
As I continued my tour of the modern-day version I wondered: is the refurbishment a little too safe and serious? For a hotel that once represented modernity, the emphasis has been on preserving the historic for regulars who wanted nothing to change. About 80 per cent of the previous classical and Empire furniture and period paintings remain, glass chandeliers abound, damask curtains and embroidered bedheads are restored amid subtly wafting modern comforts and technology – televisions hidden in mirrors, concealed plugs, and a touchpad to control air conditioning and heating.
The Ritz describes it as “modernised but with discretion”, but I felt a little sad that for a hotel that once prided itself on innovation it did not try to bring in more of the 21st century or some of France’s modern designers.
Many changes are subtle. Reducing the number of rooms and suites from 159 to 142 allows for slightly larger bathrooms but they retain the lovethem-or-loathe-them delightfully gilded swan taps, the peach-coloured towels and dressing gowns that César Ritz said best flattered women’s skin, and a room’s gilt master light switch that turns all the lights on or off.
Beside the suites, the 71 bedrooms have kept the old cream-dominated colour scheme, with blue or pink details. The final 50 or so rooms on the upper floors of the rue Cambon wing, damaged by fire in January, will open in early 2017. The very long shopping gallery (93 vitrines, six boutiques) is more fashion-oriented than the walking-stick emporiums of old, with a still-to-come Ritz Paris concept store for travel-themed gifts.
The swimming pool in what is now called the Ritz Club has kept its turquoise mosaic, though it has gone from antique to art deco style and is now home to the Chanel spa, with distinctive black and glass lines and specially created facials. There’s a new visibility, too, for the garden, replanted à la française by landscape designer Jean Mus.
With 630 staff, the Ritz Paris is determined to gain official palace status in the competitive world of French luxury hotels, where the legendary classics have been joined by the Shangri-La and Mandarin Oriental groups.
In fact, unlike the arty Starck modernity of the Raffles Royal Monceau or the redesigned bar and restaurants of the Plaza Athénée, it almost feels as if the Ritz has never been away. With a decorator best known for private residences (among them Bill Gates’s), once past the reception and concierges’ desks, this is a hotel aimed at those in search of times past. The impression is almost less like going into a hotel than into an aristocratic residence and stepping back into a slice of Paris history.
Hôtel Ritz Paris, 15 Place Vendôme, 75001 Paris (0033 1 43 16 30 30; ritzparis.com). Double room from €1,100 (£860), excluding breakfast. Free Wi-Fi. To watch a star-studded video celebrating the opening of the hotel, see: telegraph.co.uk/ritzparisvideo