Le Bristol, an archetype
1) IT HAS FRESH FLOWERS
They meet like-who-doesn't-want-the-thing, in reception, the breakfast table and the rooms . They can be bouquets or two simple cut roses in a crystal glass. If there are no flowers, there is no luxury. And that comforts us from the soulless prosaics who associate it with yachts and expensive cars. In fact, writing or uttering the word "expensive" is anticlimactic in the PHLP.
2) YOU NEED A PET
A hotel has a cat or a dog running through its corridors. Le Bristol has Fa-raon, a Goyard-collared Burmese cat who lives better than many entire countries . Regulars greet him as if he were a friend. He is a friend.
Fa-raon, the mascot of Le Bristol
3) DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS
in the phlp you have to think in macro and micro . Basically, you have to think (not the host, but those who make it possible) . For example, the shower at Le Bristol has a small faucet at the foot to test the temperature of the water. The person who receives you at reception is the same person who accompanies you to the room. In the PFLP the guest decides the degrees at which he wants the room and nobody moves them. If this fails, there is a risk of decapitation.
4) AND STARS, STARS, STAR
But not Hollywood stars, who also, but Michelin (Mishelán ) . PHLP has at least one in one of its kitchens. Le Bristol has four in total and is the only one in Paris to have them. One corresponds to Eric Desbordes and Le 114 Faubourg. The other three are by Eric Frechon and his Epicure. Four, _mesdames et messieur_s.
5) HOMEMADE PASTRIES
Everything else falls apart if the PHLP doesn't have the perfect croissants and the most exciting pastries possible . It is no use ordering them from a good pastry chef: you have to prepare them a few meters from where the guests are salivating. This idea is intrinsically linked to point 6.
The views from the bridal suite
6) NO TO THE BUFFET
The PHLP is outraged just hearing the word. The perfect breakfast is a la carte or it is not . A person staying or eating breakfast at PHLP cannot walk around the breakfast room multiple times balancing china cups and plates. You don't want to see how dirty the egg pan is. In fact, if you can, you want the hen to be a hotel guest.
7) THE SPA
Beware of this nefarious word. 80 percent of spas are not. , are places where you sweat and massages are given in cabins-zulo. The one at Le Bristol, like the PHLP that it is, is linked to a powerful brand (La Prairie), it has a swimming pool made with ship wood by an architect who built yachts to Niarchos and it even has a nursery, “Les amis d'Hippolyte”. All discreet, of course. THE PHLP always is.
The spa at Le Bristol
8) THE BEST OF THE BEST OF THE BEST
This must be declined in all details, for example, the bathroom toiletries. They must be the best. For example, Le Bristol offers some little known but of overwhelming quality, the Anne Semonin. And, beware: the hand soap is from Hermès . Why? Because it's the best and it smells like paradise.
9) The PHLP HAS HISTORY AND STORIES
And if he doesn't have them, he invents them. Le Bristol has plenty. It has been standing since 1925, it has housed Jewish architects who were refurbishing the hotel while Nazi kingpins stayed there, it was the setting for Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, who lived there for three months... A PHLP in Paris or wherever, need a story.
history and stories
10) PEOPLE
A hotel is the flowers, the steaming pastries and the marble showers but, above all, it is its people. This sounds like New Age philosophy of Everything to a Hundred but it is true. The service has to be consistent in its tone and this is achieved with internal communication and commitment. If the staff of a hotel is satisfied, the guest, that unbearable being, will be too. . The PHLP should be a place where people are as happy as possible. Luxury is microhappiness.
Note: Stays at future hotels (Shangri-La? Georges V?) may (or may not) change the results of this study. These are my principles, if you don't like them I have others.