A Room on the Seine: Cheval Blanc Paris

Stand at the window of a Seine Suite at Cheval Blanc Paris and the city lays itself out like a stage set. The Pont Neuf runs away below you towards the Île de la Cité, the river bends west towards the Eiffel Tower, and at your feet a dog is already asleep on the bed the hotel brought up for them. This is the first hotel in France to reach the A+ rank in the Roch Dog assessment, and within an hour of checking in you understand why. Nothing about having a dog with you here feels like an exception being made.

The Setting

The hotel lives inside La Samaritaine, the great department store on the right bank between the Louvre and the Pont Neuf. It began as a small shop in 1870 and grew, block by block, into what the Centre André Chastel at the Sorbonne calls a masterpiece of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, the work of the architect Frantz Jourdain, helped by his son Francis and by Henri Sauvage, between 1900 and 1930. It closed in 2005, and stood dark for the better part of two decades while LVMH brought it back to life. The store reopened in June 2021, and on 7 September that year Cheval Blanc Paris welcomed its first guests, the first city hotel of a house that until then had built only resorts, in the Alps, on the Riviera, in the French West Indies and in the Maldives.

Its address is the Quai du Louvre, and the river is the point. From the upper floors the view runs from Notre-Dame to the Eiffel Tower and up to Sacré Coeur, and the Louvre colonnade fills the windows on the other side. You are in the first arrondissement, with the Île de la Cité across one bridge and Saint-Germain across the next, which for anyone travelling with a dog means a city you can walk rather than drive.

The Hotel Itself

There are only 72 rooms and suites, which keeps the place quiet and intimate in a way the grand Paris palaces rarely manage. The interiors are by Peter Marino, who set out to honour the building's Art Deco past with warm, graphic tones and a great deal of French craftsmanship, and the house carries the Palace distinction. Even the entry rooms are generous: the Pont Neuf Deluxe Room runs to 65 square metres, with a lounge, a dressing room and a marble bathroom with a bathtub and a hammam shower. Many rooms have a winter garden or a balcony over the river, and the Seine Suite adds a living room, a dining room and 105 square metres of light off the water. A Majordome is on hand around the clock.

The food is the other reason people come. The house counts six Michelin stars across its tables. Plénitude, led by Arnaud Donckele with the pastry chef Maxime Frédéric, holds three stars, five toques and 19 out of 20 from Gault and Millau. Hakuba, the Japanese restaurant, holds two. Langosteria brings Italian fine dining to the Seine, and Le Tout-Paris at the top of the building is a brasserie and cocktail bar with a Michelin star of its own. Below it all is the Dior Spa Cheval Blanc, six treatment suites with white onyx bathrooms, a 30 metre pool, a sauna, a hammam and a gym, and for families there is Le Carrousel, the kids' club.

The Welcome

Cheval Blanc has thought about the dog as carefully as it has thought about everything else. Most of its rooms take dogs, so you are rarely turned away for want of the right one, and two dogs can share a room with you. There is no dog fee and no damage deposit, which at this level is close to unheard of. Ask and the room is made ready with a proper dog bed, real food and water bowls, toys and poop bags, so you can pack light and leave the bulky kit at home.

Your dog is not confined to the room either. The bar, the public lounge and the dining rooms are all open to dogs, so the dog comes down with you for a drink before dinner and settles under the table while you eat. And when you would rather go out alone, a dog can stay settled in the room, the Majordomes will walk them around the Maison, and the concierge keeps a list of trusted dog sitters for longer evenings.

Dinner at Le Tout-Paris

If there is one thing to do here with a dog, it is dinner at Le Tout-Paris. The brasserie sits at the top of the hotel, above the rooftops, and its terrace looks out from Notre-Dame to the Eiffel Tower. Le Tout-Paris is open every day from seven in the morning until one at night, so it works as well for breakfast with the dog as it does for a late supper. Under Arnaud Donckele's eye, the executive chef William Béquin cooks reinvented French classics: blue lobster from the grill, turbot with a seaweed glaze, roast chicken with thyme. The bar does not take reservations, which makes it the easy place to start the evening, and the cocktails are built around the character of Paris. On a night when you would rather stay in, the hotel's Carte Blanche room service has a dedicated Dog Menu, so your dog can dine in the room while you do the same.

A Day Here With Your Dog

Paris rewards a dog owner who walks, and the hotel's doorstep is one of the best places in the city to do it. Cross the Pont Neuf to the tip of the Île de la Cité and the Square du Vert-Galant sits right on the water, with the shaded Square de la place Dauphine a few steps behind it; both are on the city's own list of gardens open to dogs. On the right bank, the Jardin Nelson Mandela by Les Halles is on the same list, and the quays along the Seine make a long, flat morning walk in either direction. The hotel is happy to suggest the best routes.

For a pause on the way back, the salon de thé Angelina on the Rue de Rivoli welcomes dogs under ten kilos inside, so a small dog can come in out of the rain with you. The Majordomes can take over the afternoon walk if you are spending it in the Louvre, and should your dog ever need help, the hotel keeps an emergency vet's number to hand.

Why It Matters

Most of the great hotels of Paris will take a dog. Very few make the dog part of the stay. Cheval Blanc gives yours a bed waiting in a room over the Seine, a seat at the bar and a place at dinner, a Majordome for the evening walk, a menu of their own and no bill at the end for any of it. For the owner who wants Paris at its most beautiful without leaving their companion at home, it is hard to imagine a better address. Book it, ask for a room on the river, and take the morning walk across the Pont Neuf.

Good to Know

The hotel welcomes dogs of up to 12 kilos, about 26 pounds, and asks that they stay on a lead in the bar, the lounge and the restaurants. Paris asks the same in all its public spaces, and in the city's gardens dogs keep to the paths rather than the lawns.

Read the official Roch Dog review or visit the hotel's website.