With its red window awnings as iconic as red-bottomed Louboutins, the Plaza Athénée has long stood as a beacon of French splendor from its perch along the Avenue de Montaigne in Paris. Since it first opened its doors in 1913, its sumptuous accommodations, white-gloved hospitality, and emphasis on culinary excellence have become so celebrated and beloved by both tourists and locals alike that the Plaza—officially the Hôtel Plaza Athénée, Dorchester Collection—is now more than a Parisian landmark: It’s a travel destination in itself.
That’s why the publisher and luxury lifestyle brand Assouline is releasing a new book dedicated to the hotel, titled simply Plaza Athénée, out November 6. It’s the latest addition to Assouline’s Travel Series of coffee table books that offer, through stylish photography and evocative text, windows into some of the most beautiful places in the world. Following titles like Cairo Eternal, Jaipur Splendor, and Provence Glory, this latest volume is the first in the collection devoted not to a city, island, or region, but a hotel.
The book features an introduction by the chef Jean Imbert, who oversees the Plaza’s restaurants, including his eponymous and Michelin-starred Jean Imbert au Plaza Athénée; text by the writer, literary critic, and Academie Française member Marc Lambron; and new original photographs by Oliver Pilcher. All three creatives depict the Plaza—its rooms and its restaurants, its workers and its famous guests—with unabashed fondness, creating something like a visual love letter to the hotel and its people.
Clocking in at 272 pages, Plaza Athénée boasts over 300 illustrations and photographs, some of them archival images (see: a young Keanu Reeves reclining on the terrace of the Eiffel Suite, circa 2003) and stills from films and TV series that feature the hotel (see: Emily in Paris, Sex and the City, even the animated film Miraculous, les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir). The bulk of the book, however, is made up of Pilcher’s photos, all of them decadent and inviting. Pilcher’s no stranger to the assignment (his work is featured in Assouline titles like Turquoise Coast and New York Chic, among others), and he skillfully captures the beauty of the Plaza’s architecture, cuisine, and community, treating it like any other destination worth visiting and seeing for yourself.
Some of Pilcher’s photos resemble bonbons wrapped in golden cellophane, enveloped in either warm sunlight or the glow of the Plaza’s chandeliers. Others have the flashy look of nightlife photography—a chic artistic move born out of necessity. In an interview with Traveler, Pilcher recalls first arriving at the Plaza Athénée in February 2023: “My first concern was how dark Paris was! We weren’t blessed with the best weather at that time—we had better weather in June when I returned—so I had to adapt my style to shoot a lot of on-camera flash to accommodate for the lack of natural light.”
While on assignment, Pilcher wandered around the Plaza Athénée, hunting for charismatic vignettes of daily life at the hotel. At times, it was a lonely job, he says: “It forced me to make lots of new friends. I hung out with the boys in maintenance, chatted about my next project with the chambermaids, spoke Spanish with my Portuguese butler, and spent a lot of time with the painter and decorators when they were fixing up the presidential suite.”
As a result, many of the Plaza’s workers—everyone from the valets and clerks, receptionists and concierge, housekeepers and butlers, sommeliers and chefs, florists and window cleaners; the veritable village of them—get a turn in front of Pilcher’s lens. It’s a delightful, almost moving spotlight on the everyday people who comprise the soul and lifeblood of this glamorous hotel.
“The hotel is practically a city in itself,” says Francois Delahaye, the general manager of the Hôtel Plaza Athénée and chief operating officer for Dorchester Collection. To the hotel’s name, Delahaye counts 600 employees, 208 rooms and suites, several restaurants, a spa, and a courtyard, spread across almost 270,000 square feet of floor space in the heart of the capital. “France is a destination renowned for its hospitality, architecture, gastronomy, haute couture,” Delahaye says. “You can find all this in the hotel, all this cultural richness concentrated in a single space.”
