A century-old grand hotel two minutes from the Arc de Triomphe — 83 rooms in carved-wood and tapestry rooms, an English Bar that ran the post-war Paris film set, and a seventh-floor terrace looking straight back down the Champs-Élysées axis.
"The Raphael is what most American visitors mean when they say they want a Paris hotel — Louis XVI rooms, an English Bar where the brass is older than the franc, and a rooftop terrace where the Arc de Triomphe looks like a stage set arranged for the dinner you've just ordered."
The Raphael opened in 1925 on Avenue Kléber, two minutes' walk from the Étoile, in a carved-stone Haussmannian building commissioned by Léonard Tauber, the Hungarian-born hotelier who had previously built the Hôtel Majestic on the same avenue. Tauber wanted a smaller, more intimate counterpoint — a private grand hotel for industrialists, statesmen, and the new American leisure class then rediscovering Paris between the wars. The result was the Raphael as it stands today: 83 rooms over seven floors, walnut panelling in the public rooms, an English Bar with a Turner painting on the wall, and a seventh-floor rooftop terrace looking east down Avenue Kléber to the Arc de Triomphe and beyond it the full length of the Champs-Élysées.
The rooms are decorated in Louis XV and Louis XVI style — silk wall hangings, gilt mirrors, Aubusson rugs, marquetry desks, marble bathrooms — and are deliberately untouched by the contemporary five-star vocabulary. Standard rooms run 24–32 square metres; Junior Suites and the named Suites (the Caruso, the Kléber, the Présidentielle) run from 50 to over 110 square metres, with several offering balconies onto Avenue Kléber and a handful with direct Eiffel Tower views. The category to book is the Suite Présidentielle on the seventh floor, which has a private terrace looking onto the Arc de Triomphe — the single most photographed private terrace view in the 16th arrondissement.
Dining is small but specific. La Salle à Manger, the panelled gastronomic restaurant, serves a French menu under chef Amaury Bouhours; the English Bar — opened in 1925 with the hotel and barely altered since — is the Paris bar where the post-war film community based itself, where Marlon Brando reportedly held court during the shoot of Last Tango in Paris, and which still operates as a small-and-quiet rival to the Hemingway at the Ritz. The seventh-floor rooftop terrace, Les Jardins Plein Ciel, opens for lunch and cocktails April through October and is the hotel's strongest single asset — there is no closer luxury terrace to the Arc.
The Raphael is a member of Leading Hotels of the World and remains family-owned (the Tauber family's original Société des Grands Hôtels Européens). It does not compete with Le Bristol on contemporary grand-hotel theatre, with the Cheval Blanc on contemporary art, or with the Crillon on Place de la Concorde gravitas — but on the specific brief of a quiet, untouched, Belle Époque-style Paris five-star with the best terrace view on the right bank, it has no real rival. Honeymooners, anniversary couples, and a particular kind of returning Paris regular all keep it half-booked through the season.
For a Paris anniversary the Raphael is the answer for couples who want classic Paris over contemporary Paris. Junior Suites with Eiffel Tower glimpses run €1,200–1,800/night; the Suite Présidentielle with its private Arc de Triomphe terrace is the milestone room. Dinner in La Salle à Manger followed by a nightcap in the English Bar is the textbook anniversary evening. The seventh-floor terrace handles proposal-quiet table arrangements without fuss.
Honeymoon at the Raphael for couples who want the Paris of their grandparents' photographs — silk-tented rooms, rotary-dial-style telephones, the seventh-floor terrace at sunset, a dinner table at La Salle à Manger booked under the concierge's name. It is the choice that ages well; couples who book it tend to come back for the tenth and the twenty-fifth.
For business stays in the 16th — Avenue d'Iéna corporate headquarters, the Trocadéro embassies, the OECD on Avenue Foch — the Raphael is the local five-star. The English Bar runs as a discreet alternative meeting room; the small private dining rooms on the first floor handle six-to-twelve-person working lunches; the location is two minutes from Charles de Gaulle–Étoile RER and 35 minutes by car from CDG.
17 Avenue Kléber
75116 Paris
France
Charles de Gaulle–Étoile metro 2 minutes; Trocadéro 8 minutes on foot; CDG 35 minutes by car
83 rooms over 7 floors
Classic Rooms from €490/night
Junior Suites from €900/night
Named Suites from €1,400/night
Suite Présidentielle from €4,200/night
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 12:00 PM
Opened 1925; family-owned (Tauber family)
Leading Hotels of the World
La Salle à Manger gastronomic restaurant
The English Bar (since 1925)
Les Jardins Plein Ciel rooftop terrace (Apr–Oct)
Hammam, sauna and fitness room
Free Wi-Fi
From €490/night. The Suite Présidentielle and the Arc-facing balcony rooms book three to four months out for May–June and September–October weekends, and earlier for Fashion Week.
Book This Hotel →The 1928 grand hotel two streets from the Champs-Élysées with three Michelin stars at Le Cinq.
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The red-geranium balconies of Avenue Montaigne and Alain Ducasse's three-starred dining room.