Top 10: the best luxury hotels in Madrid
The best luxury hotels in Madrid, including the best for gourmet dining, luxurious rooms with city views, rooftop bars and pampering spas, in central Madrid near Gran Vía, the Prado, Malasaña, Plaza Mayor and Retiro Park.
Not only does this five-star occupy a corner of one of the most prestigious areas in the city, it has A-list credentials to boot. The hotel opened in 1952 and has accommodated famous guests including Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene and Matt Damon, as well as the royal families of Spain and other countries. Rooms are luxurious, there’s a garden on the rooftop, and a delightful pool is complemented by a hydrotherapy pool, sauna and steam room. Several places to dine include Michelin-starred Kabuki, and the elegant Basque restaurant Goizeko. This is a place for fans of old-school glamour.
Madrid’s Westin Palace, opposite the Prado, brings traditional glamour and sumptuous comfort to the heart of the Spanish capital. This is one of those hotels where you step through the door and enter a different world. La Rotonda, as the restaurant and lounge area under an ornate stained-glass dome is called, is a circle of elegance where locals and guests meet for coffee and drinks at all times of day. There is a good gym and sauna too. Classically decorated rooms have marble bathrooms. Sunday brunch sometimes has an opera performance thrown in.
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The Principal is popular with a media and fashion crowd, as well as anyone who wants to be able to walk everywhere. With comfortable rooms and a calm colour scheme, it is a handy haven in the heart of the city and the chic roof terrace is one of the most coveted spots in Madrid for a drink in summer. There’s also a sauna and small gym. Some rooms have small balconies. All have more or less the same elegant grey décor and sleek bathrooms with massage-jet showers. A two-Michelin-starred chef oversees the restaurant.
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It is all about good design and great service with no daft gimmicks at this hotel housed in an elegant 19th-century building, which is a bit of a relief these days. With its swirling black and white mosaic floors combining Bardiglio, Carrara and Thassos marble and dramatic red sculpture hanging in the stairwell, the Único is nothing if not dramatic. Massages and beauty treatments are available in luxe treatment rooms, but there is no spa. The library looks like a private club, and the garden is a bit of an oasis from the frenetic pace of Madrid.
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The hotel is right in the centre of Madrid, on a side street off the Gran Vía. It dates back to the Fifties (when it was known as the Suecia), and was a favourite haunt of Ernest Hemingway. Che Guevara stayed there too.. The dimly-lit Hemingway bar with scarlet velvet banquettes is definitely a place to slither off a stool after one too many Daquiris. There’s also a fun oyster bar: try the fried aubergine with smoked tuna strips, coca flatbread topped with Idiazábal cheese, or cecina air-dried beef. Some on the upper floors have large terraces.
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The perky design at the five-star Barceló Torre de Madrid has made it an instant hit with fashionistas and creatives. Top Spanish designer Jaime Hayón has created fresh, sensual interiors using a palette of jewel and berry shades with gold details and sweeping curves. The attractive steel indoor pool has great views and a sauna. Rooms and suites have wooden floors and big windows, many with spectacular views. The Somos restaurant serves the likes of teriyaki Ibérico pork cheeks, and the bar has a dangerous cocktail list.
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The five-star Palacio del Retiro is an elegantly-restored boutique hotel where period details contrast with contemporary design. This is one of the most desirable places to stay in the city, opposite the Retiro park and close to the major museums and best shops in the smartest area of Madrid. The 50 rooms and suites, many with views across the park, are all a good size and combine period architectural details such as cornicing and marble fireplaces with sleek contemporary fabrics and furniture and wooden floors. The ones on the second and third floors are the grandest and most spacious, with the Presidential Suite occupying the former library, which has mahogony-panelled walls.
The hotel occupies the site of the Santo Domingo convent and the 19th-century palace of the Dukes of Ega and Villahermosa. Although the building has been comprehensively revamped, original features remain. There is a Velázquez theme throughout the hotel with large reproductions of the great master’s paintings and the colour scheme is inspired by the tones of his palette, with shimmery fabrics in hues of ochre, indigo and maroon. The hotel is on a quiet street right in the centre, with the Teatro Real opera house and Opera metro station a minute's walk down the hill. The Royal Palace is a five-minute walk away.
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The Urso is a five-star boutique a few minutes’ walk from the oh-so-trendy neighbourhoods of Malasaña. Period features include the fabulous mahogany lift and the stained-glass windows on the staircase. The Natura Bissé spa at the Urso is everything an urban spa should be: lolling in the seven-metre hydromassage pool feels good after shopping, while the sauna is good for a quick detox. Rooms are flooded with natural light from big windows. The Table By restaurant is taken over by a different establishment each month – with several Michelin stars between them.
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What do you get when you cross a visionary Art Deco building with modish interiors and millions of pounds worth of Papua New Guinean art? Answer: one of the most interesting hotels in Madrid right now. As well as a restaurant and bar, the hotel has a fabulous rooftop swimming pool with flaming Cenia marble floor, and a solarium, both reachable via a staircase with glittering gold mosaic walls. The main restaurant here is Europa Decó. Think iguana-textured leather chairs, and a chimney made of gold leaf. Dishes on the menu include hake and peas, and roast rack of lamb with creamy saffron rice.
