Le Bristol opened in April 1925 at 112 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, near the Élysée Palace. Hippolyte Jammet bought Jules de Castellane's former property and named the hotel after the 4th Earl of Bristol, an 18th-century traveller famous for the standards he demanded. In June 1940 it took in the American embassy and escaped requisition. The Oetker family bought it in 1978 and built a wing on the site of a former convent, with the garden and the pool, and a wing on Avenue Matignon opened in 2009. It holds France's Palace distinction, renewed in 2026.
There are 188 rooms, 100 of them suites. The Superior Room, 35 m² on the courtyard with a queen bed, is sold for one guest, so for two the ladder starts at the 40 m² Executive Room, also on the courtyard. Deluxe Rooms are 45 m² and face the courtyard or the Faubourg, while their garden-view and balcony versions look over the garden. Junior Suites are 55 m². The rooms are furnished in Louis XV and Louis XVI style, with marble bathrooms that have a tub, a separate shower and two basins, and most categories include rooms that connect to a neighbour, which suits families.
What makes it the grand hotel to bring children to sits inside its walls. The 1,200 m² garden by Arabella Lennox-Boyd is the middle of the house, with Epicure's terrace on it and, in the warmer months, the tables of Le Jardin Français. On the sixth floor the naval architect Cäsar Pinnau laid out an indoor pool as the teak deck of a 1920s yacht, kept at 28°C and open to hotel guests from 6.30am to 10.30pm, with windows and a sun terrace that look north over the rooftops to the dome of Saint-Augustin and Montmartre. Children get a welcome gift and a surprise in the room, babysitting can be arranged and the spa runs Bonpoint treatments for them. Epicure holds three MICHELIN stars in the 2026 guide under Arnaud Faye, a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, and Socrate, a Birman cat, keeps the lobby.
The trade is the pool and the calendar. The pool is small, a swim with a view rather than somewhere for lengths. Epicure serves Tuesday to Saturday only and 114 Faubourg, the one-star brasserie, is temporarily closed, so Sunday and Monday dinners mean Café Antonia or a walk. In the fashion weeks the house fills early. Book it to bring children to a palace with a garden, a pool and a three-star kitchen. Skip it for the Left Bank, or for a pool to train in.
