Hôtel Lutetia became Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris on the fourth of April last year. The plaque is new. Everything else is the same building Joséphine Baker kept a suite in.
A Signature Suite sitting area, 45 Boulevard Raspail
For a hundred and fifteen years the Lutetia has been the only grand hotel on the Left Bank. It opened in November 1910, the year Paris was deciding whether to keep Art Nouveau or move on. The façade chose Art Deco. The intellectual elite chose the bar. Picasso, Matisse, Gide, Hemingway, Joyce, de Gaulle. By the time Joséphine Baker arrived she was already famous enough to have a suite kept for her.
What changed in April last year was the management contract. The Set Collection handed the keys to Mandarin Oriental. The 184 rooms stayed. The 46 suites stayed. Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s 2018 restoration stayed. The Brasserie stayed. The address stayed. 45 Boulevard Raspail, where Saint-Germain meets Sèvres-Babylone, opposite Le Bon Marché.
The fan logo
The Mandarin fan now sits on the doormat and the stationery. Some changes are smaller than they look. The hotel has the only French Palace classification on the Left Bank. That was true before April. It remains true.
What the rebrand actually does is more practical. Mandarin Oriental’s loyalty programme, its concierge network, its way of running spas. The Lutetia already had the soul. It now has the operating system of a global luxury group behind it. During fashion week, this matters more than it sounds. The transfers are faster. The reservations get harder to get.
The Lutetia already had the soul. It now has the operating system of a global luxury group behind it.
Isabelle RoweThe suites
The seven Signature Suites are still the reason to come. Wilmotte designed them with Carrara marble, bronze, gold accents, varnished wood, Murano glass. The collaborators have not changed. Francis Ford Coppola did the Saint Germain Penthouse. Isabelle Huppert did the Suite Parisienne. The Joséphine Baker Suite has two bedrooms and a private terrace that looks at the Eiffel Tower without trying to.
The Eiffel Writer’s Suite holds hundreds of books. Golden oak fittings. Literary art that does not announce itself. The kind of suite a magazine editor takes for the week of the shows and never quite leaves.
Signature Suite bathroom, Carrara marble throughout
The brasserie
Brasserie Lutetia is the public part of the hotel. Chef Patrick Charvet runs the kitchen. The room is mosaic and mirrors and clean white tablecloths. Poached langoustines. Oysters served on aloe vera. The plateau de fruits de mer is the version other brasseries are imitating without knowing they are.
Bar Joséphine sits across the lobby. The frescoes were restored in 2018 and have stayed restored. Late at night during fashion week the bar runs out of seats by ten. Order the Lutetia Spritz or do not bother.
Signature Suite bedroom, Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris
The location
Saint-Germain is no longer the cheap option. It has not been for thirty years. What it remains is the side of the river where the editorial photographer lives, where the bookshops outnumber the boutiques on a single block, where the morning queue at Poilâne is still respectable people in good coats. The Lutetia is the only place to stay if you want fashion week to feel like Paris, instead of feeling like fashion week.
From the door it is twelve minutes to the Saint Laurent show venue. Fifteen to most of Dior. The taxi rank on Boulevard Raspail moves quickly. You can walk to the Musée d’Orsay in twenty. You can walk to Le Bon Marché in two.
The verdict
The Mandarin Oriental rebrand has not changed what the Lutetia is. It has changed how it works. The building is still the Belle Époque palace that opened in 1910. The bar is still the room where the writers came. The Brasserie is still the brasserie. For Paris fashion week, the Left Bank now has a Mandarin. The Right Bank already had one at the Place Vendôme. Most weeks the Lutetia will still be the quieter address.
Book the Joséphine Baker Suite if it is free. The terrace looks the right way. Take the long way back from the shows. Cross the river at Pont Royal so the building appears on the right approach.
The Splendid Edit visited Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris during Paris Fashion Week, March 2026. Standard rates from approximately €1,400 per night. Signature Suites from €5,800. Book through mandarinoriental.com.
Photography courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris, via Wallpaper*