Hotel Lutetia Paris: our honest review of the palace

Tucked into the Left Bank, the Hôtel Lutetia is a historic house where luxury sits easily alongside the noise of the city. It is one of the very few Palace-classified addresses south of the Seine, still carrying its early twentieth-century features, including a painstakingly restored 1910 fresco, and it serves them with a personal touch.

A genuine Art Deco Parisian palace in full splendour, painstakingly restored, right in the middle of Saint-Germain.

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Raphaël Simon

A palace on the Left Bank

In a city where the grand hotels tend to cluster around the ultra-luxury Golden Triangle, the Lutetia stands apart as one of the rare opulent retreats on the Left Bank. Saint-Germain gives it something the Right Bank cannot buy. The literary district, known for its bistros and its smart boutiques, wraps the hotel in ornate squares, unbroken Haussmannian architecture and the Sèvres-Babylone metro a few steps away.

From department store annexe to palace

The house opened in 1910 as a pied-à-terre for the wealthy customers of Le Bon Marché next door, and it carries a rich twentieth-century Parisian history. After the meticulous 2018 restoration, Jean-Michel Wilmotte brought light back into the building with a glazed inner courtyard and a reworked lobby restaurant. Original Deco features were kept, among them the great revolving door and the 1910 fresco carefully recovered in the Bar Joséphine, so the historic and the contemporary sit side by side rather than in competition.

Since reopening in 2018 the Lutetia has found its rhythm, and the service is warm and unhurried. The personal touches are the part guests remember: a plate of fresh fruit on arrival, chocolate produced on site, monogrammed pillows for regulars. The brasserie handles breakfast and dinner in an atmosphere that feels closer to a neighbourhood room than a grand hotel dining hall.

Rooms, Hermes cushions and Murano glass

Rooms look onto Boulevard Raspail, Rue de Sèvres, the inner courtyard or the Eiffel Tower.

Dark Hungarian parquet, Art Deco furniture, Murano glass fittings and Hermès jacquard cushions create a pared-back elegance. The beds are enormous and genuinely comfortable, and wall-mounted tablets control the lighting and the curtains. The underground marble wellbeing floor is the other surprise, with a pool, a hot tub, a sauna, a hammam and a strong massage menu.

The brasserie on Boulevard Raspail

The hotel’s main restaurant is a high-end brasserie looking onto Boulevard Raspail and Rue de Sèvres, and it reads like Saint-Germain itself. A generous traditional seafood counter, excellent brasserie cooking and desserts worth the detour draw a mixed crowd of guests and locals. A full vegan menu sits alongside, built around salads and bowls with a Thai accent. Breakfast is served as a buffet or à la carte in the main brasserie, with good pastries, fresh fruit and a terrace that does the rest.

Is the Lutetia worth the price?

Double rooms at the Lutetia sit firmly in the ultra-luxury bracket, and that is the honest reservation. What you buy in return is a properly Parisian stay, with charm, exceptional service and pool and spa facilities that few Left Bank addresses can match. For a taste of the house without the room rate, the brasserie and the bar are open to everyone, and they are a fine alternative.

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Two things did hold us back. Breakfast could offer more choice and feels slightly neglected next to the rest, and the minibar is not included in an already high rate.

Useful information

• Website: hotellutetia.com
• Address: 45 Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris
• Telephone: +33 1 49 54 46 00
• Email: contact@hotellutetia.com
• Social media: Instagram / Facebook

The Lutetia is a reminder of Parisian elegance and Parisian history, and an invitation to spend a few days inside the timeless pull of the Left Bank. Book your stay today: here.