The Peninsula Paris

When a big-league luxury-hotel concern like Peninsula sets up shop in Paris, you can safely expect an impressive result. Let’s start with the building, a 19th-century looker at N° 19 Avenue Kléber, roughly midway between the Arc de Triomphe and the Trocadéro. Hand-restored by 20 expert stonemasons, it’s pure Haussmann from the neoclassical ornaments on the ground-floor façade to the trademark mansard roofing. The majesty of its profile dovetails perfectly with its grand interiors, whose sumptuousness effortlessly absorbs the high-tech touches; it’s not hard to picture the tense negotiators signing the Paris Peace Accords here in 1973 or, half a century earlier, Gershwin laboring over the composition of An American in Paris. As is their forte, Peninsula’s hospitality extends well beyond their own walls, thanks to a trademark fleet of stylish sedans, including a gleaming 1934 Rolls Royce Phantom II and a quirky Citroën fourgonnette. One might use them en route to the hotel’s other trademark, a series of “Academy” excursions — to the opera, a VIP Versailles experience, or an in-depth vineyard tour in the heart of the Champagne province. No fewer than six venues serve up inspired plates and cups on site, of course; of particular note is the Two-MICHELIN-Star L’Oiseau Blanc, an aviation-themed rooftop restaurant whose wraparound windows make for spectacular Eiffel-gazing. If you’re the cigar-savoring sort, that’s done best in the Kléber bar and lounge under a pair of exquisitely restored ceiling murals. Rooms embody classic luxury via a lacquer-heavy treatment in rich grays with sepia and cream notes; crucially, each offers more than enough room to step back and take in the whole picture.