42 Avenue Gabriel, 75008 Paris

La Réserve Paris

Name: La Réserve Paris
Address: 42 Avenue Gabriel, Paris, 75008, FR
Rating: 4.95

Hotel-restaurant 5-star with pool and spa in Paris

Presentation

La Réserve Paris is located on Avenue Gabriel, a few meters from the Champs-Élysées and the Élysée Palace, between Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and Avenue Montaigne. Nothing really signals its presence from the sidewalk. A curtain of trees hides the façade. It is better to give the exact number to the taxi driver, 42, because the building has neither a sign nor a canopy visible from afar, and it sometimes happens to walk past without stopping.

You push open a discreet door, and the first surprise comes right away: there is no reception desk. You settle into a lounge, sometimes with a drink in hand, while the formalities are handled elsewhere. The luggage goes up, the room is prepared, and you discover your floor without having passed through a glass office. For those used to the grand lobbies of palaces, the change of pace is surprising at first. Then it becomes one of the house’s charms.

The rooms, about forty in all, mostly suites, are spread from the first to the fifth floor. The ceilings are high, the drapes hang heavy, and a marble fireplace often stands guard in a corner of the room. The décor by Jacques Garcia favors the feel of a private apartment rather than that of a classic hotel room. Some suites look directly onto the Eiffel Tower or the Grand Palais, while others face the inner courtyard planted with shrubs. A tablet controls the lighting, temperature, and television screen. The Carrara marble bathrooms sometimes have underfloor heating and separate Japanese toilets with electronic controls.

Each room has its own butler. There is no room-service menu to browse: a word is enough, at any hour, for a bath to run, a suitcase to be unpacked, or a meal improvised by the kitchens.

On the ground floor, the library and the smoking room extend the private-club spirit intended by Michel Reybier at the opening, in 2015. It is easy to stop by there in the late afternoon, before heading to the bar for a first drink.

Two restaurants share the house, both entrusted to Jérôme Banctel. Le Gabriel, awarded three Michelin stars since 2024, revisits French classics through a journey that ranges from Brittany to Japan. La Pagode de Cos offers a freer style of cuisine, with a menu that changes with the seasons. As for breakfast, it is worth knowing that it is not included in the room rate, as is the case in many addresses of this level: best to factor that in when booking, so the bill does not come as a surprise.

In the basement, the indoor pool, rare on this scale in Paris proper, remains accessible late into the evening, with a hammam and three treatment cabins next to it. The whole place remains human in scale, far from the sprawling spas of some neighboring palaces. You rarely run into many people there, even at the end of the day.

Outside, the neighborhood has no shortage of assets: the Champs-Élysées gardens a breath away, the Place de la Concorde and its vistas, the Petit Palais and Grand Palais within walking distance. By evening, the hum of the avenue fades behind the trees.

Last detail: many guests head to the pool after 10 p.m. It is quiet, often empty at that hour, and no one will come and bother you.

Summary of a few positive reviews read on the Web

The butler restocked the minibar with coffee and little treats without us asking, and adjusted the air conditioning before we returned to the room.
Underfloor heating in the bathroom and separate Japanese toilets with remote control. Clear view of the Eiffel Tower from the suite, which depends a lot on the floor assigned.
Dinner at Le Gabriel was very refined, with attentive table service without being overbearing. The only downside was the fairly expensive bottled water, which quickly pushes up the bill when there are several of you.
Discreet entrance set back from the avenue, façade looking onto trees rather than the street. You quickly forget that you are just steps from the Champs-Élysées.
Indoor pool accessible late into the evening, with almost no one around after 10 p.m. The hammam is small but clean and well kept.
No classic reception desk; you are seated in a lounge with a library and smoking room while the formalities are handled. Disorienting for the first few minutes, then you understand the idea.