From the slopes of Montmartre to the ski resorts of Val d'Isère, and from La Baule's coastline to Brittany's rugged shores, the most stunning hotels and restaurants across France have been crafted by architects featured on the prestigious AD100 list, marking 2025 as an exceptional year for architectural design in hospitality.
The Experimental Chalet in Val d'Isère, designed by renowned architect Dorothée Meilichzon, exemplifies this trend of architectural excellence. "We always start from the architecture in all our projects. Here, this large building from the late 1980s in concrete, covered with stone and wood, immediately reminded us of an American lodge," explains Meilichzon. Drawing inspiration from American design codes, the architect embraced a forest spirit aesthetic commonly found in small chalets across the Atlantic, featuring branches transformed into furniture and marquetry. The design incorporates bronze handles shaped like branches, interlacing cross-patterns, wood elements, marble, and lacquer, all tempered by Kilim fabrics reminiscent of Ralph Lauren's style. This combination creates a comfortable, gentle atmosphere infused with modernity, blending American chalet aesthetics with Savoyard architectural sophistication.
In Paris, Villa Junot stands as another architectural masterpiece, transformed by the CLAVES Architecture duo for Iconic House. Built during the interwar period for operetta composer André Mauprey, the villa exudes extraordinary theatricality with interior mezzanine balconies reminiscent of opera houses and bas-reliefs proudly adorning fireplaces. The three-story luxury hotel villa embraces the inspiration provided by the location itself, which had been compromised over recent years when divided into multiple short-term rental apartments. To return to the original Art Deco spirit, the interior architects executed a subtle return to 1930s design codes through eloquent lacquers found throughout the rooms, precious exotic woods, and Art Deco motifs, including Viennese-style stained glass windows in the kitchen.
At the heart of the Grand Palais, Joseph Dirand's Le Grand Café demonstrates how tradition and creation can be masterfully combined. Dirand works with massive volumes and a palette of warm tones to "inhabit and respect" the historic location. Facing the Champs-Élysées, in a joyful interplay between stone colonnades, historic frescoes, and garden spirit, he creates an atmosphere where the monumental intertwines with the intimate through oxidized green metal structures, spotted mirrors, and wine-colored lacquers. These details feed the legend of this place that Dirand describes as "a cultural station, a crossroads where generations meet, Parisians of a day and forever, families, young couples." For the architect, Le Grand Café is "above all a question of atmosphere, borrowing as much from the Age of Enlightenment as from the modernist movement and the innovations of the industrial revolution."
India Mahdavi's design for We Are Ona in Paris created what could be described as a Barbie banquet, a dinner at Beatrix Potter's, or an immersion into Alice in Wonderland's universe. This new gastronomic pop-up space confines itself to enchantment with its extraordinary scenography featuring a perfect all-over pattern of Isfahan roses from floor to ceiling, including the furniture. Titled "Rose, c'est la vie" (Rose is life) by the Franco-Iranian designer and Luca Pronzato, founder of We are Ona, this venue was one of the flagship locations during Paris's wild art and design week from October 20-26, coinciding with Art Basel, Design Miami, and Moderne Art Fair. In the kitchen, Mexican chef Jesús Durón composed a Franco-Mexican influenced menu centered around seafood.
On Brittany's Emerald Coast, the Akademos duo transformed Au Petit Rennemoulin, a traditional 18th-century pink granite house located just steps from the beach in Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer. Using glossy lacquer, brilliant lacquered wood, an abundance of mirrors, and stainless steel, the architects explain: "We completely restored an 18th-century house located on the edge of the village, two steps from the beach. We completely emptied it of everything because it was in too poor condition. The only things preserved were the wooden staircase and the old framework. We completely rebuilt everything inside." This bed and breakfast showcases the distinctive codes that make the interiors imagined by Aurélien Raymond and Costanza Rossi unique, as they "wanted to give this residence a luxurious nautical atmosphere, particularly in the bedrooms." The entirely custom-made furniture multiplies nautical references, including lacquered wood reminiscent of 1940s-1950s yachts and mirrors adorned with elegant ivory shells.
Among Paris's most beautiful restaurant terraces, Le Jardin – Ducasse Baccarat offers a verdant garden sheltered from view within the emblematic Bischoffsheim hotel. The Baccarat House's private mansion on Place des États-Unis reopened its doors last autumn, gaining brilliance after several years of closure. At number 11, the residence emerges from an island of greenery in the city, with stone honor staircases and crystal chandeliers remaining as witnesses to a past where social gatherings wrote the beginning of a legend. Upstairs, Alain Ducasse's gastronomic restaurant displays a perfectly orchestrated mix-and-match décor by Harry Nuriev, Marcel Wanders, and Jean-Guillaume Mathiaut. The garden, deployed between verdant chestnut trees and palm trees, elegantly embraces the private mansion's facade, where diners can sit facing the Orangery with its crystal chandeliers.
Tristan Auer's design for Experimental Marais represents another significant achievement in Parisian hospitality architecture. After investing at the foot of the slopes in Val d'Isère, the Experimental Group set its sights on the Upper Marais with the opening of a new five-star hotel. Entrusted to Tristan Auer, the decoration references the neighborhood's history through arches, stained glass windows, and neo-Gothic style attributes that punctuate the interior. Playing with textures and shades of dark tones at the Temple – Chapon restaurant, the interior architect creates the lair of an aesthetic traveler, worthy of the great New York tables of the 1950s. The cocktail bar, baptized American Bar and the Experimental Group's hardcore nucleus, resonates as a tribute to the legendary addresses of the Big Apple and their signature recipes.
Pierre-Yves Rochon's work on La Ferme du Pré in Paris earned recognition as the "Opening of the year 2025" by La Liste 100, the gastronomers' grail. Multi-starred chef Frédéric Anton's restaurant restores nobility to two Anglo-Norman style buildings. "I wanted to create a warm and friendly place where families gather around large tables, in a décor that is both authentic and offbeat, paying homage to the history of Pré Catelan: patinated dressers, recycled objects, and walls adorned with copper pots tell the culinary history of the place," details the chef. The address, echoing the neighboring gastronomic table, displays a décor designed with Pierre-Yves Rochon, where classics of the terroir compete under silver cloches and facing toile de Jouy – homemade country terrine, traditional beef bourguignon, beef steak with pepper – representing French art of living at its peak.
Roman & Williams's design for La Fondation in Paris's Batignolles district represents luxury hotel design at its finest. Located in an ultra-contemporary concrete building designed by PCA-Stream, La Fondation serves as the new luxury design hotel of Batignolles. The interior layout, featuring numerous spaces including two restaurants, a spa, a rooftop terrace, and an auditorium, was entrusted to the New York duo Roman & Williams, familiar names on the AD100 list. To serve a muted staging full of contrast, the studio used noble and warm materials including leather seating, woodwork, and velvet in a modernist spirit dotted with works of art. Recently inaugurated on the hotel's eighth floor, the Les Ailes restaurant highlights Thomas Rossi's menu, former disciple of Jean-François Piège, offering quality bistronomic cuisine in a grandiose setting with cathedral ceilings and breathtaking views over the rooftops of Paris.
Finally, on the emblematic Hermitage beach in La Baule, Ciro's represents the culmination of legendary hospitality design. Already mythical in Deauville, it has now taken up residence in Poulinguen bay, in an Anglo-Norman jewel from the 1920s where Joséphine Baker, Edith Piaf, and Charlie Chaplin crossed paths at the beginning of the century. To celebrate the location appropriately, the Parisian duo Friedmann & Versace conceived the interior as an ode to marine life, facing bay windows overlooking the sea. The design features a palette of deep blues, sand, and coral tones, animal and mythological bas-reliefs as the studio knows so well how to compose, and shell-set chairs. With the recurring motif of waves appearing on hangings, carpeting, and even frescoes, Ciro's reveals between refinement and yacht-club aesthetics, an iodized menu full of subtlety, cementing 2025 as a landmark year for French hospitality design.
