Hotel de Paris

Some venues are described. Others make you lower your voice. The Salle Empire belongs to the second kind. You arrive from the Place du Casino, a door opens, and the century changes. Marble columns, gold leaf, a monumental painted ceiling, silk curtains that fall like ball gowns. Nothing here was added to impress. It was all here long before us. Listed as a historic monument, the room holds a particular place in the memory of the Principality. Great families have danced here, princes have celebrated here, cinema has toasted its romances here. That accumulation of memory never weighs on the room. It carries it. A wedding in the Salle Empire is not added to that history, it becomes a chapter of it. Practically, the space is unusually generous for something so classical. Close to five hundred square metres of modular space, a mezzanine that lifts the orchestra above the guests, a terrace opening onto Monaco's most famous square for the cocktail hour, and a separate street entrance that keeps your privatisation genuinely private. Catering comes from the Hôtel de Paris kitchens, which settles the question of standard before it is asked. This is a venue for couples who have no interest in reinventing luxury. Only in living inside it for one night.