English gardens provide the design thread at The Dorchester: their colors and motifs shape the rooms and suites, while an extensive art collection explores the British landscape tradition. Outside, Hyde Park stretches across from the hotel’s Park Lane address in Mayfair, with Bond Street’s boutiques nearby. That connection to its surroundings gives this grand London hotel a character beyond its dining credentials, which include contemporary French cuisine at the three-Michelin-starred Alain Ducasse restaurant. The Promenade supplies a more everyday rhythm, serving breakfast, afternoon tea and dinner with live music. Together, these spaces make the hotel as much a place to spend an afternoon or evening as a base for exploring London.
Jacques Grange gave The Mark a distinctive design vocabulary: bold black-and-white stripes, custom furnishings, and art and lighting commissioned specifically for the hotel. Working with Parisian antiquaire Pierre Passebon, he brought in contributors including Ron Arad, Vladimir Kagan, and Mattia Bonetti, giving the public spaces the appeal of a design collection. Upstairs, rooms take a more uncluttered approach, with views over Madison Avenue, East 77th Street, or townhouse gardens. The Upper East Side address puts Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art within easy reach, while Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s restaurant and Caviar Kaspia—with its caviar-topped twice-baked potato—give visitors reasons to linger downstairs.
Last year, guests included several dozen of the most prominent attendees. For one, Gala host Anna Wintour has used The Mark as a pre-Met home base for years. Also in residence were Nicole Kidman, Usher, Colman Domingo, Jennie, Naomi Watts, and Emily Ratajkowski.
Royal blue in the lobby, a grand staircase and rooms furnished with silks and antique art give the Ritz Paris its richly layered character. César Ritz chose a private mansion on Place Vendôme for the hotel he opened in 1898; he and his wife, Marie-Louise, approached it as a vast private home, mixing periods and French decorative traditions. That residential idea still gives shape to a stay, from individually styled accommodations to the wood-paneled Salon Proust, where books and armchairs frame afternoon tea. Outside, the Grand Jardin extends the hotel’s sequence of salons into greenery, with magnolias, a fountain and wooden alcoves along a trellis gallery.
