Four Seasons Hotel George V

With the smallest room a sprawling 400 square feet, and suites and public spaces filled with original 18th- and 19th-century art and antiques, the George V, flagship of the Four Seasons chain, lives up to its billing as a palace, an official tourism category introduced in 2010 requiring establishments to “embody French standards of excellence and contribute to enhancing the image of France throughout the world.” Set in a 1928 art deco building, the Four Seasons Hotel George V boasts a regular clientele of bona fide royals, including Saudi princes who rent entire floors for six weeks at a stretch. The staff includes a team of flower designers led by an art director who worked on Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. There’s also a dedicated concierge for children ordering up pint-sized bathrobes and private pastry-making lessons in the Michelin-starred kitchen.

With the latest three-year, 20-million-euro refitting, Paris decorator Pierre-Yves Rochon freshened the rooms, which are more sedate than the eye-popping ground-floor lobby. The lobby is one of the city’s most glamorous, with Flemish tapestries, large-format oil paintings, huge floral installations, and a parade of wealthy Russians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, and French businesspeople and brunching grand-mères. Fresh flowers and fruit baskets are artfully replenished daily, TVs have been installed in the bathroom mirrors, and there are now Nespresso machines for the self-sufficient.