When César Ritz opened his hotel on the Place Vendôme in 1898, he built afternoon tea into the rhythm of the house. Guests gathered in the gilded salons for delicate glassware, fine pastries, and pots of tea poured with precision.

That same standard shapes the Continental collection from the Bell Pot and The Porter to La Pomme, each piece carrying the spirit of the Belle Époque forward.

By the early 20th century, the Ritz Paris had become the default address for anyone who mattered in European art, literature, and fashion. Proust, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway all passed through — some more than once, some practically lived there. Coco Chanel did live there, for over three decades, treating the hotel's suites as a permanent home base while she built her empire just across the Place Vendôme.

The dining room —our favorite space—was the project of César Ritz and Auguste Escoffier, the chef who first systematized and indexed French cuisine as we know it. Escoffier made the Ritz kitchen the standard by which every other hotel kitchen was measured. The room itself, L'Espadon, was named after a fish of all things. The interior ran down a long corridor of mirrors, trompe-l'œil ceilings, swagged drapes, and views into the garden.

The cobalt blue running through the Continental Collection is kindred hue to Ritz Blue — a shade borrowed directly from the royal blue of Louis XIV, whose statue once stood on Place Vendôme. It's the same blue on the matchbooks, the livery, and the corridors. César Ritz chose it deliberately and so did we.