Discover The Ultimate Valentine's Day Hotel

THE BASICS

• Rates: Starting at approximately $900
• Official Site: Shangri-La.com
• Telephone & Address: 33 1 53 67 19 98; 10 avenue d'Iene
• Location: Paris

88 THE TAKE

We’ve spent the last few years watching luxury consumption move east, and we’ll spend the next few watching luxury production shift in the same direction. The Asians are bored with our Bentleysand Bordeaux; now they’re making their own stuff. They’re not having any problems exporting it, either. Even the snooty Parisians recently welcomed Hong Kong-based luxury chains into their snootiest neighborhoods. A Mandarin Oriental opened on the Rue Saint-Honore this past summer, shortly after the arrival of a Shangri-La -- the first in Europe -- in early 2011. The latter hosted us for a tour of a hotel that you simply can’t find in America… yet.

84 THE SCENE

Throughout the tour, our hosts at the Shangri-La Paris emphasized all that was distinctly Asian about the place: welcome tea in the rooms, a staff rigorously trained in friendliness, ultra-authentic Cantonese cuisine in the Shang Palace restaurant. These elements contribute plenty in the way of uniqueness and charm, but the Shangri-La really draws its power from (and justifies its rates on the basis of) an offering that is quintessentially French: the Eiffel Tower. 

It is less than a mile away, and the hotel’s architect and designer (Richard Martinet and Pierre-Yves Rochon) planned its spaces so as to maximize exposure to it. How good are the views? So good that the Shangri-La’s next-door neighbor is the former home of Gustave Eiffel, constructed there so he could admire his creation. So good that in many rooms you can literally see the Eiffel Tower from your toilet seat.

Of course, the tower is hardly an isolated attraction. The view from your room also includes the Seine, Les Invalides and Montmartre. So while your experience of the Shangri-La may be an Asian one, your memories of it will be definitively Parisian.

91 THE BATHROOM SCALE

Whether Asian, French or American, all men can appreciate heated floors and televisions embedded in mirrors, and bathrooms in the Shangri-La Paris offer both. The extra touches continue into the sleeping quarters, where we were pleased to find a valet, aNespresso machine and a desk full of easily forgotten work supplies like adapters and paper clips. However trivial this last detail may seem, it is the one that sets this hotel apart from its Parisian competitors. In a city full of waiters who blow by you and concierges who look through you, the Shangri-La has mastered service as anticipation.

Tweet