Our experts sifted through every hotel added to the Tablet Hotels selection in the past year and picked the places we think have the best overall designs.
LessWith a name like Sublime Comporta, this high-end country retreat is hardly underselling itself. But the aesthetic is more classic, the look and feel more elegantly restrained, than you’d expect. The hotel is located on a 42-acre estate dotted with umbrella pines. Accommodations span 34 rooms and suites across a handful of buildings, balancing a starkly modern first impression with subtly cozy elements.
Hotel des Dunes is named for the beach of the same name, which is just down the road, and for the dunes that are characteristic of Cap Ferret. The hotel’s style is unpretentious, resembling first and foremost the oyster shacks that are common to the region — and, once you’re inside, displaying an affinity with California surf culture and with the laid-back but elegant atmosphere often found in the Hamptons.
The fact that Soho House Istanbul is set in a palazzo built by a 19th-century Genoese merchant is a reminder that this city was, for centuries, a byword for cosmopolitanism and international commerce. The location is spectacular, right in the heart of the ancient district of Beyoğlu. Aesthetically, it’s something of a departure for the Soho House brand, but only because it’s tailored to a city with a strong visual identity.
The typical Greek island experience involves a sun-bleached, arid cliffside somewhere in the Aegean. But Zakynthos is not the typical Greek island. It’s only here that something as lush and green as Leeda’s Village could exist — a set of weathered but rather grand stone buildings nestled amidst olive groves, gardens, and lawns, offering an experience that’s subtle, even sedate, but no less sublime.
A turquoise-and-gold Art Deco mini-skyscraper, the Georgian is nothing if not distinctive. Its history since its Thirties opening is not unbroken, but under new owners — and with the help of some skilled local designers — it’s been restored to an approximation of its former glory, less a faithful restoration and more a lovingly conceived tribute, a fantasy version of Golden Age opulence.
Hotel Emblemático La Casa de los Naranjos offers a view of a slower and simpler time, and a type of hospitality that’s directly at odds with modern mass-market tourism. The house itself is a well-preserved landmark, a 19th-century manor house, and the décor is an eclectic mix of antique and contemporary elements that everywhere pays tribute to the historical setting and the house’s style of relaxed elegance.
A beautiful red-brick industrial building from the early 1900s is the raw material for the Lincoln Hotel, a 33-room luxury boutique hotel in the riverside town of Biddeford, Maine. This old textile mill retains many of its original, well-worn architectural features, and they’re complemented by an eclectic array of interventions, some clean-lined and modern, others elegantly Art Deco or whimsically postmodern.
Each of Maslina’s 53 rooms, suites, and villas looks out over the water, a protected bay on the west side of the island of Hvar, and the interiors, however handsome, stay restrained, the better to draw the eye outward. The style combines Nordic-inspired minimalism with pure Mediterranean warmth, and though they’re visually somewhat spartan, the comforts verge on the indulgent.
The setting for Pepe Vieira is a relatively secluded one, surrounded by forest in Galicia’s coastal countryside. Its rooms make much of this immersion in nature — each one is a freestanding modern cube with a vast picture window, drawing the eye from the sober minimalist-luxe interiors to the tranquil scenes outside. They’re called “galpones,” or sheds, which is an intentional understatement.