Le Bristol stars in Woody Allen's new film

Le Bristol in rue du Faubourg St-Honoré provides a setting in Woody Allen's latest film, Midnight in Paris, which opened the Cannes Film Festival this year. Time magazine reports: "Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), a writer who's grown restless piling up the money and credits as a Hollywood script doctor, has come to Paris with his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her conservative parents John (Kurt Fuller), in town on a business deal, and Helen (Mimi Kennedy). Ensconced at the posh Hotel Bristol, they hate the city, the rich food, the people; they suspect, on little evidence, that a Bristol maid has stolen Inez's pearl earrings..."

Despite the slur, Le Bristol was happy for the exposure, which included shots of its 160sq m Panoramic Suite, which has a terrace, gum and Louis XV furniture. General Manager Didier Galvez said:"We were thrilled to assist Woody Allen, the cast and crew during the making of Midnight in Paris last summer... and are delighted that Le Bristol features alongside such a distinguished cast."

Owen Wilson as Gil and Rachel McAdams as Inez in the gardens of Le Bristol Hôtel

Syria protest at Beirut's Bristol

Beirut: Many major political decisions and meetings in Lebanon take place at the Le Bristol in Beirut. On Tuesday, May 17, it became caught in the crossfire, with the result that it felt obliged to put out a statement regretting hosting a conference that showed solidarity with the Syrian government, as it had endangered the well-being of the hotel's employees and customers. It says: "The management learned from media reports that potential protests might take place outside the hotel at the time of the conference, which might pave the way for clashes between protesters loyal to the Syrian regime and others who oppose it."
MTV reported that members of the Baath party and SSNP had visited the hotel and asked to hold a pro-Syrian regime conference at the same time as a conference in solidarity with Syrian protesters. After Le Bristol cancelled the event, the organiser of the conference in support of the Syrian protestors failed to find another venue. Co-ordinator Saleh Machnouk told the Financial Times that 25 Beirut hotels had refused to host the event.

Five-star Bristol Odessa fully restored

Discover Ukaine reports that Odessa's historic Bristol Hotel has opened after nine years of restoration, though it has been operating for a while. Part of the Vertex Hotel Group network, it is one of three 5-star hotels in Ukraine's Black Sea resort. The architect Mykola Levanevskiy told DU, "This is probably the only restoration in Odessa in which there was an attempt to save the old appointments: the mouldings, the sculpture, the ceilings. Many things were done according to pre-revolutionary photos. The restored Bristol is almost completely faithful to what Alexander Bernardazzi [the hotel’s original architect] built."  

Night Stalker haunts Bristol Hotel in Frisco

This story just ran in the San Francisco Chronicle about the room in the Hotel Bristol where the Night Stalker stayed...

"The vibrations are so bad in Room 315 at the Hotel Bristol in the Tenderloin that current occupant Daniel Sepeda thinks it’s time to bring in the holy water. ‘I should sprinkle some around and say some prayers,’ he said. ‘There are weird spirits here. It gives me the creeps.’ Sepeda and his roommate, James Bowton, attribute those creeps to Room 315′s former tenant, Richard Ramirez. Ramirez is the man police say is the ‘Night Stalker,’ a cold-blooded serial killer who murdered people while they lay sleeping and then scrawled satanic symbols on their walls. Ramirez stayed at the Bristol several times during the past two years, according to manager Alex Melnikov… Melnikov said Ramirez left behind a mysterious odor in the room. ‘It smelled like skunk,’ said one resident who declined to give her name. ‘The cleaning man sprayed like hell, but it wouldn’t go away.’ A five-pointed star, a pentagram, associated with devil worship, was found drawn on the bathroom door…"

Hotel Bristol Tuzla 'disparu'

...so says Jazzy, from Tuzla, who posts this picture, below left, of where the Hotel Bristol in Tuzla stood from 1959 until recently. In its place the bright new hotel pictured on the right is planned for the third largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It could do no better than retain the excellent Bristol name. What this sounds like in the local languages - Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian – is hard to know, though there are Bristol hotels in Mostar, and in Opatija and Lovran in neighbouring Croatia, as well as one in Belgrade. Tuzla is Turkish for salt, a reminder that the Balkans were once in the Ottoman empire (the well known Bristol in Istanbul is now the Pera Museum). Two salt lakes are part of Tuzla's central park.

Le Bristol founder's grandson at Cadot Restaurant in Dallas

The Dallas Observer today publishes an interview with Jean-Marie Cadot, chef-owner of Cadot Restaurant in North Dallas, Texas. Cadot's mother is the daughter of Hypollyte Jammet, the founder of the famous Paris Bristol, where she was born and raised. She gave him his first cookbook, he says, and he roasted his first chicken at the age of nine. Her paintings adorn Cadot Restaurant, which opened in 2009 and has received many accolades.
Le Bristol in Paris is the subject of Suha Arafat and the Hope Diamond, a chapter in High Times at the Hotel Bristol, which can be read online.

Le Bristol murder suspect to be extradited

Polish millionairess Kinga Legg was battered to death with a gilded lamp in the bathroom of Room 503 on the fifth floor of Le Bristol, the five-star Paris hotel, on May 26, 2009.
Ian Griffin, the man who shared her room and subsequently went on the run was captured in England shortly afterwards. He has been in Wandsworth prison ever since, undergoing psychiatric tests, and is reported to have attempted suicide several times. The courts have now ruled that he is fit to stand trial and he will be extradited to France.
The full story behind the murder can be read in Crime Magazine