Why everyone’s talking about the Peninsula Paris

One of the things I love about being abroad is the telly. On a wine trip around the Bekaa Valley, I once spent ages taking screengrabs of a trippy Lebanese cartoon, and for years the highlight of mornings in New York was Kelly & Regis. On my recent stay at the Peninsula in Paris, I sat agog at how cheap The Matrix now looks on a state of the art, super high-definition TV set, and then, changing channel, became slacker of jaw when I realized that the hilariously camp and lengthy montage sequence I had just watched of gold taps, head scarves and Arab skullduggery was, in fact, just the title sequence to what must be a cult soap opera in Dubai. If it came with subtitles, I’d seek it out regularly somehow and let myself become quite addicted.

I imagine many guests to the Peninsula will appreciate the numerous Arabic TV networks at their fingertips. Similarly, they’ll appreciate the Peninsula’s trademark dumb waiters (to deliver laundry and the International New York Times without a knock at the door), and the nail drying machines in the walk-in wardrobes.

Squillions and years have been spent to create a new Palace Hotel on Avenue Kléber, a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe (“a boring hotel district without any fun restaurants”, as the receptionist in the Peninsula’s Chinese restaurant candidly described it, when I asked for alternative suggestions because her dining room was full to walk-ins on a Sunday afternoon). It’s been beautifully done – with the original 19^th century Haussmann details restored and glorified – and, as you’d expect from the brand, the rooms are luxurious to a fault. It all looks and feels lavish, from the silks and leathers and marble fittings in the toilets, to the Japanese bidet toilets (a badge of civilization, if ever there was one.)

Someone in management at the Peninsula group has a thing about lobbies. As at the Tokyo property, breakfast here is served in one. It’s all as you’d expect – fine bone china, small portions of red berries, vast baskets of glazed carbohydrates and cappuccinos that come with a retro wig of ludicrous foam. Service is fawning and fabulous, and instead of common ol’ eggs Benedict, there’s eggs Eleonore, which involves ham scrunched into a tiny corsage on top of a petite white orb of poached albumen and yolk. Breakfasts in Palace-style hotels in Paris are a thing of indulgence and silliness. And breakfast at the Peninsula Paris is both of those things. Although frankly, I’d rather it wasn’t served in what’s not-quite the lobby: it looks like the main entrance, so there’s foot traffic, but the actual check-in and concierge desks are in the real lobby, around the corner. Maybe it’s all to do with Feng Shui. Or something.

I’m intrigued by any restaurant theming itself around a notable failure

Less successful is what I imagine they’re calling the “fine dining” restaurant – L’Oiseau Blanc, up on the top floor. It’s heavily aviation themed, and named for the first plane that tried to make it across the Atlantic. It didn’t make it: I’m intrigued by any restaurant theming itself around a notable failure. There’s a full scale replica of the plane’s engine in the dining room, and a scaled down version of the plane itself attached to the roof, as if flying off towards the Eiffel Tower. The room itself is OTT on theme (riveted wing-metal panels in the toilets), but unfortunately, despite the best attempts of all the staff, like its namesake, the peculiarly truncated menu of L’Oiseau Blanc doesn’t quite make it. There are two starters, two mains and two puddings on the menu. “It’s seasonal,” apparently, as if the only point of seasonality is to reduce choice. You can have three or four courses: for main, your options are chicken or fish. It’s all a bit… airline, right down to just two reds available by the glass (Cab Sauv or pinot noir). “But we can do a steak,” I was told afterwards, “or something else, if you’d like.” The food is fine, to a point, but is big on outmoded Cordon Bleu technique, and too often smacks of heat lamps and the Victoria Wood sketch involving Julie Walters in a department store canteen: “Country vegetable’? Which country? Taiwan!?” I suspect the concept will be tweaked, or abandoned, quite shortly. And I hope it does get better, because this is a beautiful, opulent, aiming-for-perfection, blow-the-budget hotel. And L’Oiseau Blanc is a beautiful room – with its elegant curved rooftop windows and view across Paris, to the sparkling on-the-hour lights of the Eiffel Tower, it feels like being in a beautiful airship, drifting stately above what might otherwise be a boring hotel district without any fun restaurants. C

Peninsula Paris, 19 Avenue Kléber, 75116 Paris, France
+33 1 58 12 28 88; paris.peninsula.com