Overall, the two are within a point of each other.
Hôtel de Crillon leads on wellness (+4), service (+1.5), location (+1.5) and rooms & design (+0.5); The Carlyle on dining (+0.5).
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Fat Favorite, 17.5 out of 20. Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel
Fat Favorite, 17 out of 20. The Carlyle, A Rosewood HotelParis, France · Rosewood
A skylit basement spa and pool in calming blue tones gets used hard on hot days but draws little comment otherwise.
An 18th-century former palace turned hotel in 1909, set directly on Paris’s Place de la Concorde.
Read the full verdictNew York, USA · Rosewood
Bemelmans Bar and Cafe Carlyle draw people back for the jazz and the crowd.
A room here starts around $1,400 a night and a basic deluxe king can run closer to $1,200 before taxes, and what you get for it is a hotel that still feels like a hotel rather than a lobby full of…
Read the full verdictOut of 20. The bars start at 10, so half a point still shows.
Overall +0.5
Overall: Hôtel de Crillon 17.5 out of 20, The Carlyle 17 out of 20.Service +1.5 Why
Service: Hôtel de Crillon 18.5 out of 20, The Carlyle 17 out of 20.Hôtel de Crillon: Doormen, butlers and the concierge desk get named individually and repeatedly for solving real problems, from Hermès appointments to fireworks-view dinners.
The Carlyle: Most guests describe genuine warmth, a complimentary suite upgrade during a cold snap, and staff who remember names, though a handful report cold, dismissive treatment.
Rooms & Design +0.5 Why
Rooms & Design: Hôtel de Crillon 18 out of 20, The Carlyle 17.5 out of 20.Hôtel de Crillon: The 1758 building and Karl Lagerfeld suites pair marble-and-gold public rooms with a genuinely quiet interior courtyard guests retreat to in summer.
The Carlyle: Art deco rooms, Ludwig Bemelman’s murals, chandeliers and wood panelling get consistent praise, though the elevators and some bathrooms feel their age.
Location +1.5 Why
Location: Hôtel de Crillon 18 out of 20, The Carlyle 16.5 out of 20.Hôtel de Crillon: Place de la Concorde puts the Tuileries, Louvre and Rue Saint-Honoré on foot, though the square itself is loud and trafficky.
The Carlyle: The Upper East Side address puts Central Park and Madison Avenue shopping within a short walk but sits away from downtown dining and nightlife.
Dining +0.5 Why
Dining: Hôtel de Crillon 15.5 out of 20, The Carlyle 16 out of 20.The Carlyle: Bemelmans Bar and Cafe Carlyle draw people back for the jazz and the crowd, but room service is thin and plant-based options are limited.
Wellness +4 Why
Wellness: Hôtel de Crillon 16.5 out of 20, The Carlyle 12.5 out of 20.Hôtel de Crillon: A skylit basement spa and pool in calming blue tones gets used hard on hot days but draws little comment otherwise.
The Carlyle: The gym gets called out as needing a real upgrade, and there is little else on the wellness side to speak of.
Strengths of Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel
Strengths of The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
Trade-offs of Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel
Trade-offs of The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
Only at Hôtel de Crillon
Only at The Carlyle
A room here starts well north of a thousand euros a night, and what you're actually paying for is staffing density: three or four doormen at the entrance, someone stationed at every elevator bank, a butler team reachable by WhatsApp for anything from a housekeeping request to a lost Hermès delivery. That's the case for the Crillon, and it's a strong one. The concierge desk is the standout, repeatedly credited with pulling off things that don't happen on request elsewhere, from a same-day Hermès leather appointment to a Bastille Day dinner with a fireworks view.
The building earns its keep too: a 1758 townhouse with Karl Lagerfeld suites and two interior courtyards quiet enough that guests retreat to them in a heatwave rather than leave. Rooms run smaller than you'd expect for the price, and the smallest categories especially so, and dining is the one area that isn't consistently at the same level as the rest of the house: the bar and pâtisserie draw real enthusiasm, but the restaurants get dinged for an off night here and there, a flat burger, a soggy salad. Place de la Concorde is loud and chaotic outside the door, which some longtime guests genuinely dislike compared to quieter Paris addresses.
None of that changes the fact that this is a place people come back to and mean it, some describing it as their Paris home after a decade of returns. It suits anyone who wants the full palace-hotel theatre without the stiffness some find at the Ritz or Four Seasons George V. Book it for the service and the courtyard, not for a dinner reservation.
A room here starts around $1,400 a night and a basic deluxe king can run closer to $1,200 before taxes, and what you get for it is a hotel that still feels like a hotel rather than a lobby full of phones. The art deco rooms and the Ludwig Bemelman murals in the bar downstairs are the reason people keep coming back, and more than one guest mentions getting waved past the two-hour line at Bemelmans just for being a hotel guest. One traveler recovering from surgery at a nearby hospital was given an entire floor to herself and a stocked kitchen with a blender for protein shakes, arranged by a travel advisor who'd told the hotel why she needed the quiet.
The catch is consistency. Some rooms haven't been touched in years, the elevators are slow, and a few recent stays describe real problems: brown water from the taps, a scabies scare that the hotel wouldn't document, room service orders that never showed up. The food on property is the weakest part of the case — plant-based options are thin, the cheese plate on room service has been described as a few cubes on a dish, and the gym is small enough that regulars book the Surrey next door just to work out. None of that is universal, and the good stays outnumber the bad ones by a wide margin, but at these prices a brown-water afternoon or a missed room service order lands harder than it would somewhere cheaper.
Book it for the Central Park Suite or a high floor if you can get one, for a seat at Bemelmans, and for a version of New York that doesn't exist much anymore. Skip it if what you actually want is a modern gym, adventurous food, or to be near downtown. For anyone chasing old New York glamour with real service behind it, nothing else on the Upper East Side does it quite the same way.
We’re Sofie and Nicolas, and we’ve stayed in hotels like these ourselves. Tell us what the trip is and we’ll tell you which one we’d book, and why. We’re not really a booking service, but a few times a year we plan one properly for someone; if that’s what you’re after, say so.
It's just the two of us, so we take on a handful of trips at a time. If we're full, we'll say so. We reply within a working day. The hotel pays us, not you: your rate is the same as booking direct, and the perks come on top.
Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel: A skylit basement spa and pool in calming blue tones gets used hard on hot days but draws little comment otherwise. The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel: Bemelmans Bar and Cafe Carlyle draw people back for the jazz and the crowd.
Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel is ahead on the spa. The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel is ahead on the food. Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel adds Culinary and Parisian; The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel adds Design. Both are tagged Urban, Heritage, Architecture and Romantic.
Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel leads on this. Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel: A skylit basement spa and pool in calming blue tones gets used hard on hot days but draws little comment otherwise. The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel: The gym gets called out as needing a real upgrade, and there is little else on the wellness side to speak of.
Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel leads on this. Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel: Doormen, butlers and the concierge desk get named individually and repeatedly for solving real problems, from Hermès appointments to fireworks-view dinners. The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel: Most guests describe genuine warmth, a complimentary suite upgrade during a cold snap, and staff who remember names, though a handful report cold, dismissive treatment.
Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel is in Paris, France; The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel is in New York, USA.
Neither: Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel, and The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel, both hold Two Michelin Keys in the Michelin Guide’s 2026 hotel selection. The Keys come from the guide’s own anonymous inspections and are separate from the Fat Score.
Fat Voyage scores every hotel out of 20 across five dimensions — service, rooms & design, location, dining and wellness — read from the trip reports in the most active luxury travel communities, critics’ reviews and verified guest reviews, with the long, detailed and recent ones counting most. Nothing is paid for, and no hotel can buy a place.
