Lion d'Or

This 19th-century hotel presides over Lausanne's central square and preserves the ornamental brass railings and mirrored salons of its merchant-bank origins. Fifty to one hundred fifty guests dine beneath pendant chandeliers in rooms that feel more Paris than Lausanne—damask wallpaper, gilded plasterwork, oil portraits of industrialists long forgotten. The wine list reflects decades of stewardship. It draws couples who equate tradition with provenance and see weddings as an excuse to enter a historical register.