Hotel Ritz – the art of living in Paris

The Hotel Ritz Paris will be love at first sight. You’ll feel it as soon as you step onto the red carpet on Place Vendôme. The princes and princesses of the Old World have walked it for centuries, and now the best of the modern world…

An atmosphere of sophistication and serenity permeates every cell. The scent of fresh flowers is intoxicating, the live music lulls you to sleep… You immediately understand why the Ritz Paris has been the symbol of the French Art de Vivre – the Art of Living – since it opened in 1898.

Services and entertainment

The Ritz Paris is a favourite venue for high-profile parties, private receptions and prestigious photo shoots. Walking up from the pool to your room, you can meet… top model Natalia Vodianova. She’s in the middle of shooting for another glossy.

Meeting a star face-to-face at the Ritz is more of a pattern than a coincidence. “Beautiful and rich” live mostly in rooms “Imperial” or “Coco Chanel”, dine at the bar “Vendôme” mentioned “Espadon”. If you like one of the restaurant’s dishes, you can order it to your room at any time of the day or night, or… or you can cook it yourself!

That last idea might be intriguing. It’s not every day you get the chance to visit the kitchen at the Ritz, where Michel Roth, one of France’s top chefs, creates his masterpieces. Four hours of teamwork under the guidance of Ritz Escoffier School professionals and the French style dinner is ready. After a master class like this, you’re a million dollar host (hostess)!

Opened in 1988, the school of high French cooking trains more than 800 students from 43 countries each year in programs ranging from two weeks to six months. If you’ve been accepted, it’s not a sin to have a glass of real French wine!

Food

It’s been buzzing since the morning. If your day starts with breakfast at the legendary Espadon, you can be proud of yourself. Decorated in a classic French style, with a blue sky ceiling and white clouds on it, corduroy banquettes and sunny flowers, the restaurant overlooks a real French garden. It seems one can be satiated here with mere contemplation. However, when a basket of hot pastries and aromatic coffee in a silver coffee pot appear in front of you, the temptation to eat everything at once wins out! Breakfast at the River is a special ceremonial, and it is a sin to deny yourself that.

Moreover, the extra “croissants” can be dropped at the health club, in one of the largest and most beautiful private pools in Paris (8 x 17 m). And it is better to swim in the daytime, because in the evening the pool can turn into… ballroom!

Stronger drinks are on offer at the legendary Hemingway Bar. There are two ways to get in – through the “black star” entrance, or through the front central entrance by going through the “Gallery of Temptations”. Even a very strong-willed person cannot get around the last one – the gait slows down and you seem to be ready to burst into one of fifty shop-windows, where the latest creations of the world’s brands are presented. There is everything a shopaholic’s soul desires, from diamonds to golf ‘ammunition’. By the way, you can join this game without leaving the Ritz Hotel, as it has its own six-hole golf course.

Would you like a party in the heart of Paris? Easy! And taste the most expensive, according to the Guinness Book of Records, cocktail? Only at the Ritz, only at the Hemingway Bar!

That’s where they often “wash” the certificate of the Ritz Escoffier school. Bartender Colin Field prepares a legendary cocktail under the watchful eye of a famous writer whose photo and bust hospitably greet everyone… Who they don’t see here! See how the bartender masterfully mixes Quantro liqueur and lemon juice with 1858 Fine Champagne cognac. As Colin tells us, there are only 35 such bottles left in the Ritz collection, which is why the 700 euro price for the cocktail may still rise over time… While enjoying the 150-year-old flavour, run your hand lightly over the maestro’s typewriter, note the story of the birth of the Bloody Mary cocktail and stop your eyes on the letterbox. Journalists and novelists from various places send their works here, and the literary bohemia discusses, analyzes and critiques them and gives them a harsh verdict or a “pass to life” from the “Hemingway” bar.

 

 

 

Veronika Samsonova

Be travelers, not tourists. Try new things, meet new people, and go beyond what's right in front of your nose. These are the keys to understanding this amazing world we live in. (c) Andrew Zimmern