"LVMH's masterwork. Seventy rooms, three-Michelin-starred Plénitude, and Seine views that make the room rate feel like a bargain. The most design-forward palace hotel in Paris, and possibly the most beautiful room in the city."
Cheval Blanc Paris opened in September 2021, occupying the upper floors of the reimagined La Samaritaine, a historic Parisian department store that LVMH closed in 2005 and spent sixteen years restoring. The hotel is the group's first urban European address and is understood within the luxury industry as a statement of what a contemporary palace hotel can be when the owner is effectively unlimited.
Peter Marino, the architect responsible for a generation of LVMH retail interiors, including Louis Vuitton flagships worldwide, designed the seventy rooms and suites with what he calls "tone-on-tone residential luxury." Each room is unique. The commission ran to approximately €360 million for the full La Samaritaine restoration project. The hotel's rooms reflect a level of design investment that is simply not possible at other price points.
The Seine views are the hotel's most discussed attribute, and they earn the discussion. Rooms facing the river look directly at the Île de la Cité, Notre-Dame Cathedral (visible in the mid-distance and now fully restored), and the Pont Neuf. At night, the view of the illuminated bridges and water is genuinely moving. The terrace suites on the upper floors amplify this to the point of excess.
Plénitude, the hotel's flagship restaurant, holds three Michelin stars under Chef Arnaud Donckele. The restaurant serves a single tasting menu, changes with the seasons, impossible to describe in advance, and is one of the most technically accomplished dining experiences in France. The experience at Plénitude is deliberately unhurried; an evening there takes four hours and leaves guests with the feeling that time has been used correctly.
The Dior Spa Cheval Blanc is the hotel's wellness expression: a collaboration with the Dior beauty house, offering treatments using exclusive Dior skincare formulations in rooms that are themselves worth the visit. The indoor pool is extraordinary, not merely in size but in the quality of the light and the acoustic calm that Marino's design achieves.
The location combines the best of two Paris worlds: the Louvre is a six-minute walk across the Pont des Arts. The Île de la Cité, with Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame, is directly across the river. Rue de Rivoli shopping begins immediately. The 1st arrondissement is Paris's geographic and cultural centre, and Cheval Blanc sits at its absolute heart.
Cheval Blanc Paris is the finest honeymoon hotel in Paris by the margin of its design and its river view. The Seine-facing suites, particularly those with private terrace access, are among the most romantic rooms in Europe. Dinner at Plénitude on arrival night, breakfast in the room facing Notre-Dame the next morning: this is the honeymoon that people describe for years afterwards. Book the Penthouse Suite if the occasion warrants it. The views do most of the work.
There is no better proposal setting in Paris than a Cheval Blanc Seine-view terrace at dusk, with Notre-Dame illuminated across the water. The concierge team coordinates proposals with the kind of precision that reflects the group's experience in this area, champagne timing, photographer positioning if desired, Plénitude reservation immediately after. The hotel takes the occasion seriously, which is more than can be said for some of its peers.
For couples returning to Paris for milestone anniversaries, Cheval Blanc offers something the older palaces cannot: a sense of discovery alongside the ceremony. The hotel opened in 2021 and carries none of the over-familiarity that weighs on some more famous Paris addresses. The Dior Spa and the Plénitude dinner together constitute an anniversary experience of remarkable completeness.
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Last updated June 11, 2026