Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris

The only palace hotel on the Left Bank, and it wears its bohemian credentials with pride. Josephine Baker performed here. De Gaulle spent his wedding night here. Matisse and Picasso were regulars. During the Occupation, the hotel was requisitioned by the German Abwehr intelligence service, and after Liberation it became a repatriation centre for concentration camp survivors — their families would gather in the lobby, clutching photographs, hoping. That history haunts the building even after a spectacular four-year restoration by the Set Hotels group. Opened in 1910 in Art Nouveau and Art Deco style, with 184 rooms, a Michelin-starred restaurant by Gérald Passédat, and the kind of literary atmosphere that makes you want to order a second carafe and start writing.