The Mandarin Oriental opened in 2011 on rue Saint-Honoré, in a 1930s building put up for the Ministry of Labour. The Art Deco façade was kept and the interior entirely redrawn.
Rue Saint-Honoré
The inner garden, planted with bamboo and magnolias, shields the restaurant from street noise. Thierry Marx ran the kitchens here for ten years. The spa takes up two basement levels, with a fourteen-metre pool.
Arriving by car
Rue Saint-Honoré is narrow and one-way, and busy with local deliveries. Drop-off at the entrance is brief; place Vendôme and rue de Castiglione are the way out.
Photo: Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 3.0
Around the hotel
Rue Saint-Honoré runs between place Vendôme and the Tuileries, lined with shops and inner courtyards. The hotel sits back behind a discreet façade. Concorde is ten minutes on foot, the Palais-Royal the other way.
Our journeys from the Mandarin Oriental
The street is narrow and one-way: drop-off is brief, then the driver leaves and comes back when called. That is how we prefer to work here, rather than waiting at the kerb and holding up the traffic. Late pick-ups are easy, the street being empty after midnight.
