Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois sits right on the Rhine, in the heart of Basel’s Old Town. Its pale classical façade and grand riverside setting make an impression long before you step inside.

The hotel looks out over the water towards the rooftops of Kleinbasel, with the Marktplatz and the old town just a short walk away. It is the kind of building that makes you pause on the pavement. Wrought iron balconies, tall shuttered windows and a frontage that has shaped this stretch of the Blumenrain for the better part of two centuries. Inside, there is a real sense of grandeur, with chandeliers, antiques and polished detail throughout, and the easy confidence of a place that has been doing this for a long time and does it well.

Les Trois Rois is one of the oldest city hotels in Europe. The name is French for “the three kings”, a reference to the three wise men of the nativity, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. The first mention of an inn called the Three Kings on this spot dates back to 1681, when it stood beside the main trade and travel routes at the river’s edge. To put that in perspective, the hotel’s story began almost a century before the United States existed. It reopened as a grand hotel in 1844, and today’s main building is the work of the noted Basel architect Amadeus Merian. Over the years its guest book has read like a who’s who of history, from Napoleon and Queen Elizabeth II to Picasso, Voltaire and Charles Dickens.

It is into this setting that the hotel has brought its newest addition, a cigar lounge called The Council. Its opening marked the first stage of an extensive renovation of the main building by the renowned Basel firm Herzog & de Meuron.

It has already earned a few nicknames among those who have seen it. Some call it the “Volcano”. Others reach for something more cinematic, a Sith council chamber, or the lair of a Bond villain hidden away in the mountains. The names are playful, but we will come to that room shortly, because there are two places to enjoy a cigar here, and the other one sits just outside on the bank of the Rhine.

The Terrace

The view of the river from the terrace is the reason to be out here. The Rhine is right in front of you with the houses of Kleinbasel stacked up on the far bank. In the warmer months there is nowhere better in Basel to sit with a cigar.

You reach the terrace through the bar, and that short walk tells you almost everything about how this place is run. There are real candles here. Not the little battery imitations that have crept into so many hotels of this standing. Instead, proper candles and dozens of them, scattered around the bar area. Each one is lit by hand as the afternoon fades, watched through the evening, and replaced before the next service.

Candlelight moves in a way nothing else does, and a room lit that way feels softer and warmer. The hotel takes on that extraordinary daily effort because of how it makes you feel as you walk in. The flowers tell the same story. Fresh arrangements arrive almost daily, cut and put together by the hotel’s own florist, Fleurs des Rois, a few doors along the street.

All of this is done so that by the time you are sat outside with a drink and a cigar in hand, you are completely at ease.

The staff carry the rest of it. They are warm and quick, but what stands out is how genuinely keen they are to help. Nothing is a chore and nothing is too much trouble. There is a real enthusiasm about the way they look after you, an evident interest in making sure your evening goes well. It is the difference between service that is correct and service you actually enjoy.

The Lounge

The height of the room is what gets you first. Forty square metres with a ceiling seven metres above it, a height the hotel reached by taking out the floor above and turning two storeys into one.

That decision is what makes the walls possible. 570 ceramic tiles cover the end walls, running the full height on both sides. Jacques Herzog designed them and made a number of them by hand. The surface is uneven and the colour moves as the light crosses it, so no two tiles look the same. They carry on up above your head and it is a striking thing to sit under.

To us, the tiles look like volcanic dragon scales.

At ground level the room softens. Two fireplaces burn real kiln dried logs, and very few places will still take on a working fire. The sound and the warmth of one while you enjoy a cigar is worth the trip on its own. Red velvet seating runs the length of both long walls, deep and comfortable enough that you settle in and stay put, with dark brown walnut tables and stools built for this room by the Milanese label Marta Sala Editions and Artemide’s “Little Red Riding Hood” lamps sat on top. Nothing in here came off a shelf.

All that height earns its keep in the ventilation, which keeps the air clear throughout. You can spend the whole evening in The Council and go straight on to dinner without carrying any of it with you.

The one thing the room cannot do is serve you directly. Swiss law does not allow staff inside a room where cigars are being enjoyed, so the hotel built a hatch into the wall by the door. You place your order, a panel slides open from the outside with your drink behind it, the panel closes, and you collect it. Nobody interrupts you and the room stays yours for the evening, which is a rare kind of privacy.

We have written before about how few cigar lounges are designed. Most of them borrow the same dark wood and leather from the last place, and the room ends up looking like every other room in the industry. The Council was designed by architects for this building, and it could not be mistaken for anywhere else. Whether the look is to your taste is beside the point. What matters is that professionals were brought in and given the space and the budget to do the job properly. A building of this age was structurally altered to make it possible, and one of the most celebrated architects alive spent time making tiles by hand for it.

Final Thoughts

Les Trois Rois could have made the cigar lounge look like the bar. The bar is gorgeous, and nobody would have complained if The Council had been more of the same. Instead the hotel went in an entirely different direction and built something that looks like it came out of a film.

That is what makes this place worth the trip. You have the terrace, which is the traditional experience, open to the Rhine with a drink and a cigar in the warmer months. Then you have The Council, which is unlike anything else in the industry. Two completely different evenings in the same building, and both of them done properly.

It is a bold choice and it paid off. There is nothing like The Council anywhere else, and that is exactly why we recommend Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois to anyone who wants to enjoy a fine cigar.