Le Meurice, the palace hotel on the rue de Rivoli since 1835

Le Meurice, the palace hotel on the rue de Rivoli, moved to number 228 in 1835. Charles-Augustin Meurice had opened a first luxury hotel in 1818 on the rue Saint-Honoré, at the terminus of the Paris to Calais coach, for English travellers.

In 1855 Queen Victoria stayed there on her visit to Napoleon III. In 1889 it became the first hotel in Paris to have the telephone. Known as the hotel of kings, it received the exiled King Alfonso XIII of Spain in 1931, and later Salvador Dalí, for a month each year from 1959 until his death.

From September 1940 to August 1944, the hotel served as headquarters of the German military command in Paris. Bought in 1984 by the Aga Khan IV, it joined the Dorchester Collection in 1997. It keeps the Salon Pompadour, the Bar 228 with its frescoes by Alexandre-Claude-Louis Lavalley, and, as its emblem, the greyhound taken in during the building works.

Facing the Tuileries gardens, in the 1st arrondissement, Le Meurice, named a palace in 2011, brings together its rooms and salons, the gastronomic restaurant whose kitchens Alain Ducasse has run since 2013, and La Pâtisserie du Meurice, opened in 2018 by Cédric Grolet.