I sometimes wonder if the Parisian obsession with palaces is linked to the fact they did away with the people who usually inhabit them in 1789?
The people from Le Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme tell me excitedly that it has now 'officially' got Palace status. How did they know? Does a man go around counting the turrets, measuring the pile on the carpet and enumerating the chandelier bulbs?
But official it apparently is. The French government has now laid out specific criteria for five-star properties to achieve the rating of Distinction Palace. A jury made up of ten personalities from hospitality, architecture and design, literature, film and television, science and business makes the choice. Of the eight, four are in Paris: Le Bristol, Le Meurice, Le Plaza Athénée and Le Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme.
Palace baggers are now in a state of high confusion. Some people aspire to climbing all 283 Scottish mountains above 3000 feet. We more modest souls just want to spend a night, ideally in a four-poster bed, in every Parisian palace hotel.
So what are they? We'd always assumed there were six: the Ritz, the George V, the Hôtel de Crillon, Le Bristol, Le Plaza Athénée and Le Meurice.
Before the shock Hyatt news, I'd got one closer to the end of the quest with a couple of nights at Le Bristol. So how palatial an experience was that?
We were treated like royalty, but this joint is not palatial. It sits comfortably among the embassies and signature stores of the Rue Faubourg St Honoré, aristocratic, handsome, but absolutely not trying to lord (or roi) it over its neighbours. The Plaza-Athenée has its fashionistas, the Crillon its whispering technocrats, the Georges V its potentates... but Le Bristol has neighbours and old friends. The guests might have flown in from New York or drove by on the way from Chelsea to Reims, but they all have the air of dropping in on some chums from a bite to eat and a kip. I don't think any five-star Parisian hotel can properly called 'laid back'. But Le Bristol has, to borrow a phrase its more senior guests would have used a lot at one time, an air of détente.
But where next? The Ritz, to complete the old list, or the Hyatt, to finish off the new 'official' one? I may need to consult the leading authority on all things palatial and hotelish, the writer Claire Wrathall. But even she seems puzzled by the Grand Palace Question (see her article on The most luxurious hotels in Paris).
Back in London, sipping a thoughtful Bloody Mary at The Savoy, I wondered why hotels like that - so noble, so famous, of such a distinguished lineage — still don't get to be a palace? Maybe it's because in London there are a couple of real, working palaces just down the road at the end of the Mall. Lesé majesté may be a French term, but it's very much a living English concept.
For more information on Le Bristol visit le-bristol.com
