Hôtel Métropole Monte-Carlo

The Métropole is the Monaco palace that insiders tend to choose. A Belle Époque building of 1886 set slightly back from the Casino gardens on its own courtyard drive, it stands apart from the SBM-run establishment across the square—independently owned, more intimate in scale, and dressed by Jacques Garcia in layered velvets, tassels and low-lit opulence that makes the lobby one of the principality's great theatrical rooms.

Rooms and suites are plush and classical with contemporary comfort; many overlook the courtyard's calm rather than traffic, a quiet worth prizing in dense Monte Carlo. The hotel's culinary reputation was built with Joël Robuchon's long residency, and its restaurants—Mediterranean fine dining and the Odyssey pool restaurant in a Karl Lagerfeld-designed setting—remain among the principality's most fashionable tables.

The spa, operated with Givenchy, brings couture-branded treatments and a serious facilities floor beside the heated pool. The Casino, the Métropole shopping gallery and the Larvotto beaches are all within minutes on foot. Where the Hôtel de Paris performs Monaco's pageantry, the Métropole offers its pleasures at lower volume—many seasoned visitors never stay anywhere else.