50 Hotels to Visit Before You Die
The best moment of any hotel experience comes just after check-in, and just after the trip in the ornate lift, and just after the handing over of pleasingly heavy-set keys, and just after the bell-hop has escorted your luggage (magicked, it seems, from nowhere) up to your room, and — after the long and winding journey to this homing beacon of hospitality — you shut the door behind you and stand alone in your room for the first time.
Jump on the bed, hark at the view, take your shoes off amid the pillowy carpet/ reclaimed concrete/ mahogany floorboards/ boggle at the steep-sided bath, and ogle the local lager in the hidden minibar. Good hotels achieve a unique trick — they transport you completely, while always making you feel at home. And the following 50 examples are worth visiting for that reason, among many others. They are set out in no particular order and with no algorithm at work beyond our own experience, some highly informed hearsay and the fairytales of others (though they start in the UK and fan out slowly from there.) See you at the bar.
Claridge’s, London, England, London’s most glamorous and best-loved hotel, Claridge’s has become a byword for brilliant service, exquisite hospitality and old-world sparkle. The hotel most other Mayfair hotels want to be when they grow up.
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The Fife Arms, Braemar, Scotland, Founded by the art tycoons behind Hauser and Wirth, the Fife Arms is a wonderfully detailed, completely imaginative and pleasingly traditional hunting lodge, set among the Cairngorms in dark mahogany, tartan finery, and jolly playfulness.
Lime Wood Hotel, The New Forest, England, A handsome country house in rambling grounds, this New Forest institution has become one of Britain’s best-loved Grand Dame hotels, thanks to its Georgian grandeur, homely charm and Angela Hartnett’s sublime kitchen.
La Colombe d’Or, Saint Paul de Vence, France, The Riviera as it once was, and as it should be. Hidden away, understated, family run and vaguely unknowable, La Colombe d’Or is scattered un-showily with incredible artworks from the masters of the 20th Century — many of whom would settle their restaurant bills with paintings. It is handsome and homely, and the pool looks good enough to drink.
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