Why book Shangri-La Paris

Some hotels borrow history; Shangri-La Paris lives in it. The palace at 10 Avenue d’Iéna was built between 1892 and 1896 by architect Ernest Janty for Prince Roland Bonaparte, grand-nephew of Napoleon I – a man barred from an army career by virtue of his imperial surname, who poured his energies instead into geology, botany and anthropology, and commissioned a Louis XIV-style palace on the Chaillot hill to house his collections.

His presence is everywhere still: his monogram and the Bonaparte emblems worked into the stone and ironwork, lion heads and blazons across the facade, and the first-floor state rooms – the Grand Salon, the Salon de Famille, the family dining room – restored to their gilded, listed-monument condition and now among the most extraordinary event spaces in Paris. After passing through the hands of Princess Marie Bonaparte and, improbably, the Suez Canal Company, the palace was bought by Shangri-La in 2005 and restored over five years – facades rebuilt stone by stone under architect Richard Martinet, interiors by Pierre-Yves Rochon, gardens by Louis Benech – before opening in 2010.

The other reasons are simpler. No hotel in Paris looks at the Eiffel Tower more directly. The rooms are elegant in the true sense – silk, marble and Empire lines rather than trend. There is a private garden with a genuinely charming restaurant in it, one of the largest hotel pools in the city attached to a full health club, and a leafy, almost suburban calm that most Paris palaces can only dream of. And despite the name above the door, nothing here feels corporate – there is none of the Asian-modern gloss the brand is known for elsewhere. This is a French palace hotel through and through, and staying here feels less like checking into a chain than being lent a wing of someone’s very grand house.

The vibe

Quieter, greener and more residential than most of the other Right Bank palaces – less lobby theatre, more private residence. The crowd reflects it: well-travelled couples here for the Tower-from-the-pillow moment, families spread across the suites, and a steady stream of very good-looking weddings and dinners passing through the state rooms. The mood is hushed and grand, with Empire furniture, silk-lined walls and a palette of blue, ecru and gold throughout. One honest caveat: during our stay, the service didn’t always rise to the setting – inconsistent and at times brusque, it is currently the gap between this palace and the very top tier. The building carries you regardless, but it is worth knowing that the welcome can run most efficiently elsewhere in Paris at this price.

Location & setting

The address is the quiet coup. This is the 16th arrondissement – the grandest and greenest of Paris’ residential quarters, all Haussmann apartment blocks, embassies, plane trees and discreet old money – west of the city centre on the slope of Chaillot, above the banks of the Seine. It’s a part of town visitors rarely think to stay in, which is precisely its appeal: leafy by day, quiet at night, with an almost suburban calm that makes the monuments feel like your own. The hotel sits five minutes from the Eiffel Tower across the river – close enough that the Tower doesn’t just appear in the view, it dominates it, and the hotel’s upper floors sit almost level with its first platform. The Musée Guimet is on the doorstep, the Palais de Tokyo and the Trocadéro minutes away, and the villagey streets of Passy – all fromageries, florists and well-cut coats – a short stroll or an even shorter drive. This is the green, unhurried Paris that Parisians actually live in.

Rooms & suites

There are 100 rooms and suites, custom-fitted to the palace’s bones rather than stamped from a template, in Rochon’s restrained Empire register: tufted headboards, silk-threaded wallpaper, marble bathrooms with heated floors. The Eiffel-facing rooms are the hotel’s calling card and among the most in-demand in Paris – they book out months ahead, and deservedly – with the Tower framed dead-centre from bed, bath and balcony. If the view matters, and here it should, book the Eiffel category and book early.

The specialty suites are where the palace really performs, ranging from terrace suites at the top of the building to the signature collection: La Suite Chaillot, La Suite Shangri-La – seventh floor, private terrace, the Tower all but at arm’s length – and, grandest of all, La Suite Impériale. Set in Prince Roland’s former private apartments and listed as a historic monument in its own right, it runs to 275 square metres of soaring ceilings, original mouldings and gilding, artworks, a four-poster bed and a formal dining room. We stayed here, and it is the closest a hotel gets to a film set: the floors creak in the way only a real 19th-century palace’s can, and you drift through the rooms half-expecting to be called down to a state dinner. It is not a suite so much as an address.

Dining

Breakfast is served at Maison Roland, the hotel’s new all-day restaurant, opened in May 2026 in the private garden and named for the Prince himself. The setting is small, flowery and charming – white tablecloths, Gien porcelain, silverware, tables scattered between the greenery with the Eiffel Tower rising beyond – and the menu is a study in French classics people actually want to eat: devilled eggs with salmon roe, sardine rillettes, country terrine, sole grenobloise, hanger steak au poivre, beef tartare, Brittany oysters and lobster done several ways. No foams, no theatre, just bourgeois Parisian cooking done properly in one of the city’s most secretive garden settings. The service, it must be said, hasn’t yet caught up with the room – our breakfasts were slow and short on charm, which a restaurant this lovely shouldn’t allow.

Elsewhere, Le Bar Botaniste – its name a nod to the Prince’s herbaria – occupies a run of historic salons and mixes some of the best cocktails in the 16th, while the long-running Shang Palace remains the only Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant in France.

Facilities

For a historic palace, the facilities are exceptional. Below stairs, CHI, Le Spa is built around one of the largest hotel pools in Paris – around 16 metres of it, flooded with natural light – opening onto a rare outdoor terrace for lounging and sunbathing between treatments. There’s a proper gym, sauna and steam, and treatment rooms that take their cue from the brand’s Asian wellness heritage: the one place the Shangri-La accent is welcome.

The verdict

A surprisingly wonderful stay, and a truly Parisian one. In a city where the palace hotels increasingly compete on spectacle, the Shangri-La competes on something rarer: a real Bonaparte palace on the greenest, calmest bank of the Seine, five minutes from the Eiffel Tower and with the best views of it anywhere in Paris. The design honours the building rather than fighting it, the suites feel like a film set, and the garden at Maison Roland is one of the city’s loveliest places to start a day. You are not staying near Parisian history here – you are sleeping in it, creaky floorboards, imperial monograms and all.

Shangri-La Paris, 10 Avenue d’Iéna, 75116 Paris. shangri-la.com/paris | @shangrilaparis. Rates from approx. €1,200 per night.

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