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I was there when La Réserve Paris opened in 2015, and have returned on numerous occasions since. I was enchanted from day one, and more than a decade later, the spell remains unbroken. Outwardly, little about the hotel has changed. Its main restaurant, Le Gabriel, has accumulated first one, then two, and now three Michelin stars. Le Gaspard, its exquisite bar (which seats 18), has expanded slightly into the streetside terrace. The foliage in the serene central courtyard has grown ever more dense, treatments in the bijou basement spa ever more sophisticated. With just 40 rooms, La Réserve is by far the smallest of the city’s super-elite palace-designated hotels, and it retains a private quality that you might describe as residential—particularly if you are accustomed to discreet residences that are swathed in silk, velvet, taffeta, and cordovan leather, with Versailles-like parquet floors, gilded reliefs, and views across Paris from Notre-Dame to the Eiffel Tower. Owner Michel Reybier and designer Jacques Garcia have collaborated on several projects (La Chartreuse de Cos d’Estournel, on the estate of the same name in Bordeaux, is another glorious example). But La Réserve Paris is their masterpiece. —Steve King
