Whether you are among the 15 million tourists heading to Paris for the Olympics or the nearly 37 million visitors who come to the city throughout the year, one stop on your itinerary should be Shangri-La Paris.
The City of Light is filled with some of the world’s best properties, but here are some ways that this Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star hotel outshines the others.
A Rich History
Many Paris hotels tout a “Palace” title, a government designation given to upscale properties with exceptional locations and top-tier service. And while Shangri-La Paris easily earns that status, it was a bona fide palace for Prince Roland Bonaparte, Napoleon’s grandnephew, when it was built in 1896.
The prince was a geographer and a botanist, and his home was the world’s largest private herbarium at the time with more than 2.5 million plant species, including nearly half of the planet’s flowers. Fittingly, it’s the first European hotel to earn Forbes Travel Guide’s VERIFIED Responsible Hospitality badge, marrying 19th-century opulence with 21st-century environmental consciousness.
Rooms with a View
You can stay in Bonaparte’s former quarters. The one-bedroom L’Appartement Prince Bonaparte offers a Directoire design in blue and gold, 16-foot ceilings with crown molding and gilt work, Versailles-style parquet floors, a living room, a dining area and a full butler’s kitchen.
While the prince’s suite is impressive, the hotel’s crowning glory is the accommodations with Eiffel Tower views. About half of the hotel’s 100 rooms and suites offer front-row seats to Paris’ Iron Lady and the Seine. Come nightfall, you’ll find yourself drawn to the windows, awaiting the tower’s hourly five-minute sparkle — a light show that never loses its magic.
The light-filled accommodations exude classic elegance with azure, white and ivory hues. They also incorporate subtle nods to the hotel brand’s Asian heritage with chinoiserie touches like black lacquer dressers and silk-threaded wallpaper. The marble bathrooms, with Guerlain amenities, standalone tubs and heated floors, elevate the experience from luxurious to utterly indulgent.
Fine Food and Drinks
A soaring glass dome makes the two-story, all-day restaurant La Bauhinia feel light and airy, and in the summer, the leafy terrace opens for alfresco dining. Mornings here are a celebration of French pastry. The breakfast buffet is a treasure trove of delicacies, from strawberry-filled madeleines to flaky croissants. Pair your pastry with an all-natural Nutella-like spread, freshly made with the press of a button.
As the day progresses, La Bauhinia pivots to a menu of inventive seafood small plates like the crispy rice with tuna and a decadent caviar topping. But it’s the lobster French toast that steals the show. A round of pillowy bread arrives at your table, and the waiter then spoons succulent lobster chunks, sea beans and bisque on it. This savory twist on pain perdu is comfort food elevated to an art form.
Shangri-La’s first European hotel is thoroughly French, but its Asian roots are showcased at Shang Palace. It’s one of the city’s premier Chinese restaurants. Amid wooden screens and columns inlaid with carved jade flowers, standout dishes include a meticulously arranged platter of batonnet-cut vegetables crowned with ginger-laced salmon sashimi, crispy blue lobster with salted egg yolk, as well as melt-in-your-mouth cubes of grilled A4 wagyu beef.
For a nightcap, head to Le Bar Botaniste. After the prince died, his vast plant collection was donated to Claude Bernard University in Lyon, but the hotel continues to pay homage to Bonaparte’s love of botany with this intimate, tucked-away bar. Cleverly designed to resemble a Napoleonic tent with striped wallpaper, the bar adds many nods to nature, from the lush green wall to edible flower garnishes in your cocktails.
The botanical-forward menu spotlights libations like almond-scented Three Clicks Left with Gin Anaë (an organic French spirit), gentian (a plant used as a bitter), peach liqueur, almond brandy and grapefruit soda. It’s an appropriate way to offer a salut to the prince’s botanical legacy.
Opulent Design
The Paris hotel sets a regal tone as you pull up to its Louis XIV-style white façade featuring French stone adorned with lions and other figures. Bonaparte commissioned Ernest Janty, who performed restorations on the Louvre and Tuileries Palace (which served as the royal palace before Versailles), to design his urban sanctuary.
As you step inside, the white-stone interiors feel even more grand. The lobby is a masterpiece of marblework, featuring five varieties sourced from the Pyrenees, Alps and Tuscany that cover the floor in shades of maroon, marigold, pine green and white. Keep walking to the vaulted-ceilinged rotunda and you’ll see off to the left a striking Black Venus sculpture with a gold-feathered loincloth and a serpent coiling her legs. The torches she holds overhead light your way across a checkered floor to a sweeping white Carrara marble staircase with an ornate steel-and-polished-brass banister winding upward — it’s one of the most striking backdrops in the eminently photogenic hotel.
Ascend the stairs and you’ll find a series of salons. While we usually don’t recommend visiting a hotel’s meeting areas, these venues served as Bonaparte’s dining and family rooms, and he spent most of his time in these opulent spaces. The Louis XIV-style Grand Salon is dripping with gleaming gold leaf from the tall ceiling to its walls. Look closely and you’ll spot Bonaparte family emblems — imperial crowns and bees — among the gilt work. Gold lion heads adorn the white marble fireplaces, silent guardians of the room’s splendor.
Next door, the Salle à Manger holds a secret revealed during Shangri-La’s 2006 renovation. Beneath 14 layers of paint were hand-carved mahogany panels commissioned by Bonaparte depicting battle arms and military trophies — a nod to the family’s martial legacy. This unexpected find has been meticulously restored, transforming the space into a handsome salon.
For a more feminine aesthetic, step into the Empire-style Salon de Famille. Here, soft blue walls are lined with painted figures, including angelic winged women around a medallion.
To experience a salon like a royal, consider splurging on a Bonaparte Dinner. The special private event re-creates the former owner’s lavish banquets, from the imperial crown porcelain plates to the four-course French meal, in a space that’s hosted generations of the elite.
A Sparkling Pool and Spa
When you want to unwind from your Parisian adventures, head to CHI, The Spa at Shangri-La Paris. The Four-Star spa extends the hotel’s botanical motifs from the delicate floral wallpaper covering the halls to the white reliefs of plants in the treatment rooms. Even the refreshments continue the theme: sip on turmeric, ginger, coconut and holy basil tea, or water infused with orange blossom, staghorn sumac, ginger and verjuice. Book a calming CBD massage to help you get good rest after a long flight.
The spa also houses a mosaic-bottomed, sky-ceilinged 17-meter pool lined with columns. A wall of windows lets abundant natural light into the space, and there’s a small foliage-filled terrace if you want some fresh air on a chaise lounge. It’s a welcome upgrade from its former life as the palace stables.
