The honest review of Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel

The suites are far more special than anything at the George V, and Crillon's bars still feel properly Parisian — you can still hear French being spoken, which is rarer than it should be.

My issue with the Crillon has always been the location: Place de la Concorde is total chaos, same reason I've only stayed at Le Meurice once. But the bar scene here is genuinely better than at the Four Seasons — there are still Parisians there, which is the whole point of a great hotel bar. The Ritz and Le Bristol have been smarter about remaining local institutions, but Crillon isn't far behind.

The bar dice game is a fun gimmick and the hotel is undeniably beautiful — but the rooms felt underwhelming given everything else on offer.

There's a board game at the bar where you roll dice to determine your drink, which is gimmicky but genuinely fun in the right mood. The hotel itself is gorgeous. My issue is the rooms — they don't match the visual drama of the public spaces, which creates a slight disconnect when you're paying at this level.

The hotel is beyond gorgeous — but the lunch at Jardin d'Hiver was a genuine disappointment, with a dry burger and tasteless fries that had no business appearing on a palace hotel menu.

The valet was excellent and the property itself is stunning. But the food at Jardin d'Hiver was, frankly, not up to standard — the burger was dry, the fries were decorative rather than edible, and the salad was memorably bad. The grilled cheese with caviar was a delight, and the champagne was flawless. The problem was the time pressure: a rushed lunch because they needed the table back for afternoon tea service created a stressed experience that doesn't belong at this level.

This is the best hotel I have ever stayed at — and the bar turning into a live music concert in the evenings is something I was completely unprepared for.

Breakfast had everything you could possibly want. The spa treatments and the staff working them were exceptional. Dinner was excellent with a well-chosen wine list. But the surprise was the bar in the evenings — live music transforms the whole atmosphere into something beyond what a hotel bar is supposed to be. It elevated the stay from excellent to genuinely unforgettable.

We pulled up for our anniversary and three doormen had our doors open before the car fully stopped — by the time we checked in they'd already flagged the occasion and arranged a surprise upgrade with a bottle of rosé champagne waiting in the room.

The room had a walk-in wardrobe, heated floors, a pop-up TV rising from the foot of the bed, and the most comfortable mattress I've ever slept on — I genuinely looked into buying one before remembering I live in Ireland. Les Ambassadeurs bar was the highlight of the evenings: our bartender offered off-menu cocktails and made the whole thing feel like a private experience. The Butterfly Pâtisserie cappuccinos were excellent and they give you a little Crillon chocolate with every coffee, which sounds small but lands exactly right. I'd go back without hesitation.

We've done Le Bristol and the Ritz with our kids — the Crillon was the perfect middle ground: fully luxurious but without the formality that makes children (and honestly, some adults) uncomfortable.

Staff went above and beyond to make our children feel welcome rather than tolerated, which is not something you can say about every Palace hotel in Paris. Breakfast on the terrace was exceptional, and we were lucky enough to have an Eiffel Tower view room. If you're traveling with a family and want the grandeur without the stiffness, this is the one.

I grew up visiting this hotel and watched it decline before the renovation — it's come back grander than ever, and Les Ambassadeurs is the best bar in Paris for people-watching with serious substance behind the drinks.

The last time I was at the bar, Keanu Reeves was at one table, Marc Jacobs at another, Vera Wang at a third — but what keeps me coming back isn't the celebrity sightings, it's the atmosphere and the quality. The hotel's signature scent, the sake program, the shiatsu spa treatment that will eliminate jet lag faster than anything else I've tried — these are the details that make it more than a beautiful room. Afternoon tea here is a genuine event, not a hotel formality.

I've evaluated a lot of luxury hotels professionally, and the Crillon's ability to update 18th-century grandeur with genuine residential warmth while keeping three kids from demolishing the lobby is a serious achievement.

The private check-in salon — where we sat, were handed drinks, and watched staff discreetly collect my children's banana peels in a cloth napkin without flinching — set the tone for the whole stay. The hotel is intentionally over-staffed in the best way: someone stationed by every elevator bank, three bellmen at the door before the car stops. My butler gave an excellent orientation then mostly stayed out of the way, but the WhatsApp line for the broader team was consistently fast and useful. One Michelin star at L'Écrin, 124 rooms, and a sense of Place de la Concorde history that no renovation could diminish — this is among the very best in Paris, period.

I'd just come from Cap d'Antibes, so the concierge bar was going to be high — the Crillon cleared it.

We came directly from Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, which sets a nearly impossible standard for butler and concierge attentiveness. The Crillon matched it in most respects and surpassed it in some. The location was fantastic — genuinely convenient to everything we wanted in Paris. Rooms were excellent. Le Bristol might offer a slightly more IYKYK experience for next time, but it would be very hard to beat the Crillon as a baseline.

I've been staying in luxury hotels for forty years and rarely bother writing reviews — but the Crillon's team compelled me, specifically because hospitality has lost its soul at so many properties and this one has found it again.

Managing Director Vincent Billiard is genuinely omnipresent — in the lobby, at breakfast in Jardin d'Hiver, making sure every guest is looked after personally. Michael at the entrance remembered us from a prior stay, greeted us by name every time we came and went, and quietly arranged transport without being asked. Amal and Joanna at breakfast remembered every special request from day one. Concierge Pierre is the best I've encountered at any hotel I've stayed at — my wife had a delivery issue with Hermès and he sorted it over a weekend. Head bartender Henry at Les Ambassadeurs talks about cocktails with the kind of passion that makes you order a second one.

It's a genuinely beautiful hotel, but post-pandemic pricing has reached a level where the value math no longer works unless you're going for the bar.

The bar is legitimately the best feature of the property and worth visiting regardless of where you're staying. But the rooms are not large, and the rates have climbed to a point that feels disconnected from what you actually get in the guest room. I'd visit for drinks and stay somewhere else.

This is our Paris home now — my sisters and I have returned multiple times and it continues to exceed expectations every visit, which is rarer than it sounds at this level.

From the doormen to the concierge team to housekeeping and the bar staff, every interaction reflects the kind of intuitive five-star hospitality that's genuinely hard to sustain across an entire property. Manager Cedric's leadership is visible in the culture — you can feel that the standard of excellence starts at the top and travels all the way down. We've stayed at many of the world's best hotels and the Crillon remains consistently among them. The warmth here is not performed.

I waited 40 minutes for a car that arrived and then left immediately — and when I raised it, a staff member commented on my emotional state and ended the call. This is not what I pay for at a Palace hotel.

The concierge arranged a driver for multiple stops, then apparently told the driver to return without telling me — leaving me waiting outside before watching the car pull up and drive away. The follow-up from a staff member named Allan was worse than the original incident: he characterized me as 'constantly upset' rather than addressing the operational failure, then refused my follow-up call. I've escalated to management. For a property at this price point, this kind of service failure and the dismissive response to it is genuinely unacceptable.

We live in Paris and visit Les Ambassadeurs dozens of times a year — and after all that, no one has ever recognized us, while other five-star establishments know us by name.

Last visit we brought family for their first time and stood outside for over half an hour watching people leave and tables sit empty, being told they were reserved. When we were finally seated, the waiter was rude to a group that was nothing but gracious throughout. I rarely see the same faces working the bar twice, and the staff turnover seems to be the core issue — you can't build the kind of warm institutional memory that defines great hotel bars without consistency in the people.