The hardest thing for any hotel to achieve is consistently perfect post-stay ratings from our guests. At the end of each year, we assemble the fourteen hotels that have received nothing but flawless feedback, and that have done it the most.
LessThe hilltop village of Civita di Bagnoregio is a vision so magnificent that you’ll have a hard time believing that Italians once nicknamed the place “the dying city.” When an earthquake struck in 1685, residents fled; centuries later, an Italian psychologist and his wife bought the old seminary and transformed it into a fantastically charming guesthouse called Corte della Maestà.
Tuscany’s Montalcino is famous for the walled hilltop city, its idyllic surroundings, and the region’s coveted sangiovese grosso wines. And to that list of attractions you can add at least one extraordinary hotel. Villa le Prata – Residenza del Vescovo is a scant five minutes’ drive from the city walls, and it’s as pure an introduction to the delights of Tuscan countryside living as you could possibly ask for.
Cortijo del Marqués is an Andalusian country manor that offers a unique escape; half an hour outside of Granada, it’s quiet, surrounded by olive groves, full of ancient charm thanks to its beautifully preserved stone architecture. It’s been kept up to date, but not quite redesigned, and while its comforts have been modernized, its atmosphere hasn’t.
To the extent that there is such a thing as the “typical” castle hotel, Domaine des Etangs is a departure. Rather than shoehorn a dozen modern hotel rooms into a medieval floor plan, architect Isabelle Stanislas has done something slightly more clever, locating the guest rooms not within the picturesque château but scattered about the estate in separate farmhouse buildings.
Es Racó d’Artà is something special: in the size of the estate, which comprises not just a farmhouse but nearly two dozen outlying casas and casitas, as well as in the sheer excellence of its design, by the well-known local architect Toni Esteva. More than a hotel, it’s a wellness-oriented retreat, complete with a spa, yoga and meditation instruction, and a location adjoining the Parc Natural de Llevant.
Casa Polanco is a small and intimate boutique hotel set in one of Mexico City’s poshest neighborhoods, and it occupies what was once a private house — two of them, actually, a Forties Neocolonial mansion and the unmistakably modernist addition next door. Together they contain just 19 rooms and suites, all unique and all decorated in a style that’s unmistakably luxe but maximally tasteful.
Once upon a time, Siem Reap was a village. A village strategically positioned as the gateway to Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world, mind you, but a village nonetheless, a far cry from the bustling resort destination it is today. So it makes sense that one new hotel, the 45-villa Phum Baitang, would aim to recreate the simple charm of village life, set just outside of town.
Hotel Vilòn aims to provide not just luxury-hotel service and comfort, but residential charm and intimacy as well. The setting, in the city’s historic center, in a 16th-century house annexed to the Palazzo Borghese, is as romantic as it gets, and close by to many of the familiar attractions. But not for a moment does it feel like a busy city-center hotel; once inside, the quiet is practically monastic.
At Lupaia, the “Tuscan rustic” farmhouse charm is cranked up to eleven or twelve, especially in its open kitchen, where a daily four-course dinner is made out of produce from the hotel’s own organic garden. And it’s in plentiful supply in the rooms as well, carefully adapted from five painstakingly renovated historical structures, each of which is an architectural mosaic of Tuscan styles.
This fishing village of Oualidia is where Marrakchis go when the tourist season hits, and it’s where you’ll find La Sultana. The style is, in a way, exactly what you’d expect from a classic Moroccan seaside resort — stone, tadelakt, antique furnishings and original artworks. Colors are soft and sunny, and sunlight and space are both in plentiful supply.