The early 20th-century building on the corner of Paris’s Avenue Kléber and Avenue des Portugais has undergone myriad transform¬ations since it first opened as the Hotel Majestic in 1908. At one time, it served as offices for France’s defence ministry; then as the headquarters of Germany’s high command in Paris during the second world war. In 1973, it was the venue for the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, which marked the end of the Vietnam war.
位于巴黎克雷贝尔大街(l'avenue Kléber)与葡萄牙大街(Avenue des Portugais)拐角处的大楼兴建于20世纪初，首先是美琪酒店(Hotel Majestic)于1908年在此开业，从那以后，这幢大楼“改换了无数次门庭”。曾几何时，它是法国国防部办公大楼所在地；二战期间，它又成为德国驻巴黎最高指挥部总部。1973年，《巴黎和平协定》 (the Paris Peace Accords) 在此签署，该协定标志着越战正式结束。
Walk past its grandiose entrance today, and its brand-new bolt-on glass portico and two hulking Chinese lions on either side of the main steps are signs that the former Majestic has just undergone another change.
如今走过它气势恢宏的大门时，崭新的螺栓紧固式玻璃门廊以及门两边主台阶上两只中国风格的大石狮子活生生地表明昔日的美琪酒店所在地又更换了新主人。Last month, the building reopened as the Peninsula Paris, the Hong Kong-based hotel group’s first venue in Europe. With a total investment of nearly 800m (460m to purchase the building and 338m for its refurbishment), the Peninsula Paris is one of the biggest and flashiest hotel projects ever undertaken in the French capital. L’Oiseau Blanc, its aviator-styled rooftop bar and restaurant, offers sumptuous views of the city.
不久前，大楼重新开业，这次的新主人是巴黎半岛酒店(Peninsula Paris)，它是总部位于香港的集团在欧洲开业的首家酒店。酒店总投资近8亿欧元（其中4.6亿欧元买下整幢大楼，花费3.38亿欧元进行重新装修）。从机舱风格的楼顶酒吧与餐厅L’Oiseau Blanc向四周俯瞰，巴黎的美景一览无遗。
But it is not alone. Within a relatively small radius of the Peninsula, near the Arc de Triomphe, two other new five-star hotels have opened since 2010. On the Rue Saint-Honoré, one of the city’s go-to streets for high-end shopping, the Mandarin Oriental offers top-rate rooms and suites looking over a verdant central courtyard for 925 a night.
但这样的绝佳酒店比比皆是。自2010年以来，离半岛酒店只有咫尺之距、位于凯旋门(Arc de Triomphe)附近的另外两家五星级酒店又相继开业。在巴黎高档购物去处圣奥诺雷街(Rue Saint-Honoré)，文华东方酒店(Mandarin Oriental)的高档客房与豪华套房可以俯眺酒店内绿草如茵的四合院，每晚的入住费用为925欧元。In the more sedate 16th arrondissement, guests can relax at the Shangri-La Hotel in a building that was once home to Prince Roland Bonaparte, great-nephew of Napoleon. The hotel has the best pool of any five-star hotel in Paris and offers seductive views of the Eiffel Tower. Bonaparte’s fully restored rooms alone are worth the visit.
在更为静谧的第16大区，嘉宾们可以惬意地入住香格里拉酒店(Shangri-La Hotel)，这儿曾一度是拿破仑侄孙罗兰•波拿巴王子(Prince Roland Bonaparte)的府第。酒店的泳池冠绝整个巴黎的所有五星级酒店，在此还可眺望艾菲尔铁塔(Eiffel Tower)的雄姿。单单入住彻底翻新的波拿巴王子的房间，游客们就已不虚此行了。What all these hotels have in common, beyond their Asian roots, is the sort of modern, high-end facilities that a new class of mega-rich international tourists – many of them from emerging economies such as China, Russia and Brazil – had looked for among Paris’s old guard of top-notch hotels.
除了均来自亚洲外，这些酒店的共性就是现代高端设施一应俱全，它们正是新涌现的全球富豪阶层（很多来自中国、俄罗斯以及巴西等新兴国家）在巴黎老牌顶级酒店中到处寻觅的目标。The new Asian presence in Paris’s hotel scene has sent a tremor through some of the most famous names in Parisian hospitality, inducing an initial period of collective introspection – in much the same way that France’s recent economic malaise has forced its residents to ponder the country’s fading grandeur in a faster-moving, more competitive world.
亚洲酒店集团最新进军巴黎，“震动”了巴黎的一些最知名酒店，初期还引发了集体性反思——这与近期法国经济萎靡不振迫使国民深刻反思国家在快速发展、竞争激烈的全球环境中地位每况愈下如出一辙。For the majority, it has also served as a wake-up call, forcing them to undertake the biggest investments in decades and a rush to turn rooms into suites and gymnasiums into spas.
对于多数酒店来说，这也如同震耳发聩的警示，迫使巴黎本地酒店在未来几十年里进行大规模投资，抓紧时间把普通客房改造成豪华套间以及把健身房改建成spa房。This year, the Bristol completed a six-year renovation to bring it up to date with the demands of today’s ultra-rich. The Ritz, which closed for a 140m revamp in 2012, barely a year after the Shangri-La and the Mandarin Oriental barged into Paris, will not reopen until 2015 – a year later than expected. Meanwhile, on the corner of Place de la Concorde, a seven-storey temporary office block housing architects, engineers and foremen provides just one clue as to the scale of renovation taking place at the Hôtel de Crillon.
今年，Bristol酒店为期六年的改建工程完工，以满足当今富豪的现时需求。丽兹酒店(The Ritz)2012年歇业后，进行了总耗资达1.4亿欧元的翻修（距离香格里拉与文华东方酒店进军巴黎不到一年时间），并将于2015年重新开业，比预期的时间晚了一年。与此同时，在协和广场(Place de la Concorde)边角上，临时搭建了一幢七层办公楼，建筑设计师、工程师以及领班济济一堂，克利翁酒店(Hotel de Crillon)的改扩建规模可见一斑。On Avenue Montaigne, Paris’s shopping street par excellence for luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Prada and Hermès, the Hotel Plaza Athénée has just reopened after a 10-month, 200m facelift – 100m for the purchase of adjoining properties and another 100m to revamp rooms, restaurants, spa and bar.
蒙田大道(Avenue Montaigne)上的雅典娜广场酒店(Hotel Plaza Athénée)经过为期10个月、总投资2亿欧元（其中1亿欧元用于购入紧临的房产，另外1亿欧元用于客房、餐厅、spa以及酒吧的重新装修）的翻新后，刚刚重新开业。蒙田大道是巴黎著名的购物街，专售路易威登(Louis Vuitton)、普拉达(Prada)以及爱马仕(Hermès)等奢侈品牌。François Delahaye, its general manager and once butler to the Duke of Westminster, told me that the most important decision he took during those months was to keep every one of the hotel’s 550-odd staff on full-time pay. “I didn’t want to shoot myself in the foot by allowing the Peninsula and the others to hire them,” he said.
雅典娜广场酒店总经理佛朗索瓦•德拉埃耶(François Delahaye)曾当过威斯特敏斯特公爵(Duke of Westminster)的管家，他告诉我重新装修期间，自己做出的最重大决定就是确保酒店的550多名员工都能领取全额工资。“我不希望半岛及其它酒店把我的员工‘挖走’，从而自毁长城，”他对我说。So what does Paris’s new, more competitive hotel landscape look like? I stayed at two of them – old and new – to find out. Of the new guard, the Peninsula, with its 200 rooms and suites sets the standard. Even those that are not suites, which go for about 1,000 a night, are quite spacious – a rare thing in Paris.
那么，如今巴黎更具竞争力的新型酒店究竟如何？我入住其中的两家（一家老牌酒店与一家新建酒店）以一探究竟。就新酒店而言，拥有200间客房及豪华套房的半岛酒店已设立了标准。即便非豪华套间（每晚的费用约为1000欧元）都异常宽敞，这在巴黎实属凤毛麟角。The lines are clean and in a style somewhere between art deco and modern business functionality. The colours run cool with plenty of black, grey and cream. Everything is tasteful but also a little sober. Save for the nail dryer built into the wall of each walk-in dressing room, the feel is predominantly masculine.
房间内的轮廓线干净整洁，风格介于阿泰科与现代实用型商务之间。客房内的色彩包括了黑色、灰色以及淡黄色，时尚感十足。一切显得既美观又素雅。除了可走进人的更衣室墙上固定的烘干指甲的机器外，整个客房的主基调阳刚气十足。Yet just when you start to think that this is a box (albeit a spacious one with complimentary soft drinks from the minibar) of a hotel room, two things change your mind. The first is a magnificent oval-shaped bathroom, clad in black-and-white marble with a deep, generous bathtub as its centrepiece.
然而，诸位刚觉得房间犹如大盒子一般（虽说客房宽敞，而且小冰箱里还放着免费饮料），两样设施会立马改变您的看法。第一是高大上的椭圆形浴室，地面铺着黑白色大理石，其中最引人注目的就是大浴缸。Throw in a splash-proof television, touchscreen console to control lighting – the “spa” setting, with its low lights and mood music, is gimmicky but fun – and even an Asian-style lavatory seat with its own heating and water jets, and the chances are that you may not want to leave.
锦上添花之物还包括防水电视以及触摸式灯控器（俨然spa配置，昏暗的灯光以及烘托气氛的音乐，尽管噱头十足，但乐在其中），甚至还配备了安装自热与水喷系统的亚式马桶座，诸位最后很可能会流连忘返。The Peninsula’s second coup is a tablet that allows you to control everything. This is entirely different DNA from those restaurants and bars that hand you their menus arranged in often bewildering sub-menus on iPads. The Peninsula’s interface, designed by the group’s own technology team in Hong Kong, is simple, attractive and functional. At a touch, you can open or close the curtains, control the flatscreen TV set, adjust the lighting and tweak the temperature. It is effortless. Refreshingly for a top-dollar hotel, internet is also included.
半岛酒店的第二大亮点是提供操控一切的平板电脑。这种做法迥异于那些常规酒店及酒吧，服务员递上来的菜单通常由眼花缭乱的分菜单编排而成，并在iPad上显示。半岛酒店的界面既简洁、好看又实用，由集团位于香港的技术团队亲自设计。轻轻一触摸屏幕，就能收起或拉下窗帘、操控平板电视、调节灯光亮度以及微控温度。一切显得轻而易举。这些高价酒店还免费提供因特网，着实让人耳目一新。As Nicolas Béliard, the Peninsula’s general manager, told me, “We consider internet to be a basic and necessary service for our guests”. Astonishingly in 2014, many of his competitors do not share his views.
半岛酒店总经理尼古拉•贝利亚德(Nicolas Béliard)对我说：“我们认为因特网是必备的基本服务”。令人诧异的是，时至2014年，他的很多同业竞争对手并不认同他的观点。Close by, but light years away in its approach, the revamped Plaza Athénée is in many ways the antithesis of the Peninsula – although the ground-floor areas of both have been restored with the same painstaking detail to the faithful preservation of the buildings’ historical appointments.
雅典娜广场酒店与半岛酒店尽管相距不远，但经营方式却大相径庭。改建后的雅典娜广场酒店在很多方面与半岛酒店截然不同——尽管两家酒店的一楼装修做到了不厌其烦与事无巨细，而且忠实地恢复了其历史原貌。The oak-panelled walls of the Peninsula’s bar and the magnificent stone work and mouldings of its lobby and ballroom are a case in point. But while the Peninsula’s grand scale impresses, the Plaza Athénée, with its classic red awnings and geranium-filled flower boxes, seduces.
半岛酒店用橡木板装饰墙面的酒吧以及其大厅与舞厅里富丽堂皇的石雕作品与模制品都是明证。但是，半岛酒店的恢宏大气让人印象深刻，而传统红色遮阳蓬与种满天竺葵的花盆点缀的雅典娜广场酒店则让人想入非非。From its marble-floored lobby to its multiple mirrors and gilt surfaces, the 103-year-old hotel is ornate, luxurious and, above all, feminine. In other words, it is quintessentially French.
从铺着大理石的大厅到多重镜子以及外表面镀金，拥有103年历史的雅典娜广场酒店装饰华丽、奢侈豪华，最重要的是显得阴柔娇美。换言之，它是典型的法国风情。It also has history. This is where exotic dancer and temptress Margaretha Geertruida “Margreet” Zelle MacLeod, better known as Mata Hari, stayed before she was arrested, charged with espionage and shot by a French firing squad in 1917. More recently, it was the backdrop for the final season of HBO’sSex and the City.
雅典娜广场酒店同样颇具渊薮。脱衣舞舞女与风月高手玛嘉蕾莎•吉尔特伊达•泽利麦克劳德(Margaretha Geertruida “Margreet” Zelle MacLeod)被当局逮捕前一直居住于此，玛塔•哈丽(Mata Hari)的艺名更为人熟知，她被控犯有间谍罪，并于1917年被法国行刑队枪决。后来，这儿又成了美国家庭电影频道(HBO)的电视剧《欲望都市》(Sex and the City)最后一季（即第六季）的拍摄地。All of that makes the Plaza Athénée a natural destination for those who can afford it and an unattainable dream hotel for those who cannot – which is probably the vast majority of the city’s 84m visitors a year.
所有这一切让雅典娜广场酒店成为有钱主的首选，也成为囊中羞涩者可望不可及的梦想酒店——而他们可能在每年光顾这座城市8400万游客中占了大多数。The rooms, from the magnificent 450 sq metre, 27,000-a-night royal suite, with its seemingly endless real estate filled with Louis XVI-style furniture and oil paintings, to the 1,000 25 sq metre quarters often hired by families for their travelling nannies, are unapologetically old-school.
从总统套间（每晚2.7万欧元、面积达450平米、房内到处是路易16(Louis XVI)时期风格的古董家具与名画，看似价值连城）到通常供家庭随行保姆居住的客房（每晚1000欧元、面积为25平米），雅典娜广场酒店的客房依然是老派做法（实在执拗之极）。The Plaza Athénée’s rare stabs at the 21st century generally fail to go more than skin-deep: just turning on the huge flatscreen TV set in the royal suite takes some effort; the new lift, with its Louis Vuitton-inspired brown-and-gold interior, creeks. Those things may deter some of the world’s nouveaux riches. Others probably do not care.
雅典娜广场酒店罕见的新举措只是治标不治本：光打开总统套间里的超大平板电视就要费不少周折；设计灵感源自路易威登、内饰打造成棕色及金黄色的电梯“时常犯毛病”。这些问题可能会让全球“土豪”望而却步，而其他富豪则可能不会介意。Whichever camp you belong to, you cannot turn a blind eye to its renovated Le Bar, a collision of styles so violent that it leaves the visitor with visual whiplash. This is home to an unsettling mix of DJ booth, a boomerang-shaped bar in clear resin and traditional wooden-panelled walls – all co-existing under a ceiling of billowing blue fabric.
游客不管属于哪一阵营，都不可能对翻修一新的Le Bar酒吧视而不见，它是各种风格的“激烈碰撞”，给游客以强烈的视觉震撼感。它由DJ直播间以及用干净树脂和传统木板墙面打造出的回力镖形状的酒吧区杂合而成——在波浪状蓝色织物做成的天花板下，它们相安无事地共存。To order a drink, just pick up the iPad and wrestle with the digital menu. Alternatively, use your smartphone to “read” the QR code printed on the drinks mats – if you do not have the appropriate program already installed, spend a few more minutes of your evening downloading the app before you can read what’s on offer.
客人若要点饮料，只需拿起iPad，点击数字菜单即可；也可用自己的智能手机“扫描”饮料垫上印制的二维码——手机若没有安装相应的应用程序，晚上只需多花几分钟时间就能把所需程序下载，然后径直“扫描”所售饮料。Yet beyond the old-school luxe and, perhaps, Le Bar, there is one clear and irresistible reason to visit the ground floor of the Plaza Athénée: the Alain Ducasse restaurant. Under the Plaza Athénée’s revamp, this three-Michelin-starred marvel next to the hotel’s famous courtyard now offers diners a menu of fish and vegetables served in a long room with three large chandeliers suspended over rounded chrome-backed sofas and contemporary wooden tabletops. Simply put, it is exquisite.
然而，除了老派的奢侈做法以及Le Bar酒吧外，造访雅典娜广场酒店的首层，还有一个明确无误与难以抗拒的原因：那就是艾伦•杜卡斯餐厅(Alain Ducasse restaurant)。雅典娜广场酒店重装修后，这家位于酒店漂亮院落旁的米其林三星级高档餐厅如今给食客提供各种鱼和蔬菜的菜单，用餐地点位于长形房间，三顶树形装饰灯悬挂于在铬合金支撑的圆形沙发与现代风格木质桌面上方。一句话，艾伦•杜卡斯餐厅美不胜收。Lili, the Peninsula’s signature Cantonese restaurant, is a daring leap in time and space – back to an era that feels somewhere close to the 1920s and to a place that looks something like a Chinese opera. It is theatrical and different. And the dishes – braised sliced cod with garlic and shallots, and roasted pigeon marinated with osmanthus – are sublime.
Lili是半岛酒店内的正宗粤菜馆，无论是在时间还是空间都实现了大胆跳跃——时间恍如感觉回到了上世纪20年代，空间则仿佛置身于京剧中的某个场景，显得既夸张又不同寻常。无论是葱烧鳕鱼片，还是琵琶乳鸽 (roasted pigeon marinated with osmanthus)，所有菜肴都让人赞不绝口。It is tempting to think that hotel perfection would be the love child of the Plaza Athénée’s femininity and the Peninsula Paris’s masculinity. But given that impossibility, it is at least reassuring to know that with the advent of the Asian groups and the response of the incumbents, Paris has more to offer the high-end international traveller than ever before.
这不由得让人想入非非：尽善尽美的酒店应该兼具雅典娜广场酒店的柔美以及巴黎半岛酒店的阳刚。但鉴于以上可能性不存在，因此至少让人宽慰的是：随着亚洲酒店集团进军巴黎以及原有酒店适时应对，国际高端游客的酒店选择比以往任何时候都要多。