Enjoy cutting-edge accommodation at the latest hotel openings with serious design chops
Hotel Humano
Brisas de Zicatela, Oaxaca, Mexico
Tucked on the southern slice of Oaxaca’s Zicatela surf beach, Hotel Humano is the latest accommodation alchemy from Grupo Habita. Mexico’s hippest hospitality group is credited with invigorating destinations, from the Yucatan’s Playa del Carmen to Mexico City, with intriguing, stylish designs that highlight local artisanal craftsmanship.
Hotel Humano’s mid-century modern interiors embrace a pared-back Scandi aesthetic, while nodding to the area’s salty surf scene. Within latticed walls that fuse inside and outside worlds, exposed concrete is juxtaposed with clay tiles, pink-hued handmade bricks and tropical woods. Open-plan rooms keep it light and harmonious, separating sleeping, bathing and relaxing with freestanding partitions.
A lobby café serves smoothies and energy shots for early morning surfers while in the central garden, dotted with palms and fire pits, the alfresco restaurant’s Oaxacan fare includes thinly sliced mahi-mahi, citrus, chilli oil and peanuts. At sunset, retreat to the rooftop terrace bar’s monolithic steps to toast the big orange’s last gasp.
designhotels.com/hotels/mexico/oaxaca
Wilderness Bisate Reserve
Ruhengeri, Rwanda
Widescreen views. Tick. Exquisite architecture. Tick. Extreme luxury. Double tick. Wilderness Bisate Reserve, overlooking six dormant, rainforest-clad volcanoes in Virunga National Park – a peachy spot for visiting mountain gorillas – blends exquisite design, local craftsmanship and high sustainability.
Four sumptuous suites, resembling shaggy bird’s nests in the canopy – the creation of Nicholas Plewman Architects – have sitting rooms, two fireplaces and freestanding jet-black egg baths, alongside bamboo decks with hot tubs. Their interiors, inspired by Rwandan creativity and heritage, include woven-reed matting on timber floors, volcanic rocks, hand-embroidered fabrics and stunning gorilla artworks. In Bisate Reserve’s communal areas, whose emerald hues reflect the verdant rainforest, expect a refined take on East African flavours. Sourced from on-site gardens and local farmers, dishes include hoisin-glazed oyster mushrooms, sweet potato noodles and cucumber salsa. As well as meeting gorillas, you’re in pole position for top-notch birdwatching, trekking to see golden monkeys and climbing Mount Bisoke.
wildernessdestinations.com/africa/rwanda
Brach
Madrid, Spain
Prepare for a tasteful hit of Philippe Starck. High-end Evok Collection’s first Spanish hotel lets the French designer apply his signature “modern nostalgia” to a fabulous 1920s property on Madrid’s vibrant Gran Vía. With the intimacy of a private home, Brach’s interiors tell the dreamlike story of a love affair where the man adorns its 57 rooms and suites with his memories. Cue pale wood panelling, leather and pottery alongside wickerwork and personal objects, with serene bathrooms of breccia stone.
Embodying the spirt of the capital’s grand 1920s cafés – imagine Dali and Lorca having an intellectual chinwag – Brach Madrid’s restaurant’s eclectic paintings and bric-a-brac provide a stage for chef Adam Bentalha’s Mediterranean sharing plates, perhaps octopus, smoked eggplant and sobrasada sauce? Its cocktail bar nods to rustic villages with bottles wrapped in woven straw, while the marble-clad La Capsule spa returns to the 21st century with its hyperbaric oxygen chamber and infrared sauna.
One&Only Moonlight Basin
Montana, USA
Big Sky Montana, with snow-slathered peaks and fragrant pines, is the spectacular home to One&Only’s first US and alpine resort. Starchitect Olson Kundig, lauded for sensitively integrating designs into their natural surroundings, has created a resort simultaneously connected to and protected from the epic landscape. Harnessing the region’s colours and textures, the sleek contemporary oak-lined room and suites have a natural palette, fireplaces and stone bathrooms with deep soaking tubs. Wraparound balconies and floor-to-ceiling windows overlook Big Sky’s iconic peaks.
When it opens this autumn, Moonlight Basin’s six restaurants and bars will include the modern Japanese cuisine of former pro-snowboarder Akira Back, whose restaurant empire spans the globe, and a cocktail and whiskey shack, inspired by Prohibition-era speakeasies, tucked into nearby forest. Soak in its stunning spa’s pool or get active in the wilderness, with 5,800 acres of superb skiing, dog sledding and fat-tyre biking, or summer hiking, fly-fishing and kayaking.
oneandonlyresorts.com/moonlight-basin
Casa Foscolo
Istanbul, Turkey
Architectural heritage, meticulous restoration and contemporary art intermingle in this photogenic revamp of a pioneering 1890s apartment-hotel block in Istanbul’s historic Pera district. The neoclassical property’s original high ceilings, stone walls and spiral marble staircase, along with its antique brickwork, period windows and handcrafted oriental motifs, are now complemented by warm pastel tones, tile mosaics and decorative ceramics. Eighteen rooms and suites, most with colourful kitchenettes, have hardwood floors, classic wingback chairs and organic wood furnishings.
The tasteful reinvention links past and present with carefully created contemporary art, sourced from galleries and founder Yasemin Vargi Emirdag’s private collection, including the reception’s striking green cactus flower woman by Rafael Silveira. Other pieces, such as Hakan Özdil’s staircase murals, were commissioned from local artists.
Casa Foscolo’s in-house gallery, all-day dining area and serene library lie a short stroll from the iconic Galata Tower, the Istanbul Modern art museum and Pera Museum.
Corinthia Grand Hotel Astoria
Brussels, Belgium
Good things come to those who wait. After a four-year, roughly £125 million restoration, Brussel’s Belle Époque gem on Rue Royale has re-emerged in dazzling fashion. At the heart of the hotel (opened in 1910 for the World Fair) with its adored Ionic columns and Louis XV-style interiors, is its Palm Court where an 11-metre-high stained-glass dome is etched with golden curlicue and flowers: a dreamy spot for tea or cocktails.
Its 126 rooms and suites, used by luminaries from Winston Churchill to Prince Hirohito, now sport grey, blue and gold hues, contemporary Belgian artworks and Art Deco lights. There’s a cathedral-like check-in space, serene subterranean Sisley spa and two top-notch restaurants, including the magnificently stuccoed Palais Royal’s Franco-Belgian fine dining with a Japanese twist, courtesy of two-Michelin starred David Martin. Add in mixologist Hannah van Ongevalle’s inventive cocktails and Brussel’s sleeping grande dame has well and truly awoken.
Eriro
Ehrwald, Austria
A potential gamechanger in Austria’s conservative hospitality scene, Eriro nestles harmoniously among Tyrolean meadows at 1,580m; sustainably immersing guests in the traditions, aesthetics and seasons of its Alpine home. Adhering to the local architectural vernacular, the nine-room, adults-only hideaway lies beneath saddle roofs and is forged from local organic materials including stone and wood from surrounding forests. Minimalist interiors, all earthy grey, greens and browns, and handcrafted wools, timber and loden, are flooded with natural light through floor-to-ceiling windows, making the spectacular landscape integral to the design.
Accessed by cable car, Eriro’s restaurant celebrates regional farm and foraged ingredients, cooked over an open fire for depth and intensity. A basement spa, with cave-like entrance, follows the same natural approach with low-lit pools, spruce and Finnish saunas, and massages based on medicinal herbs. Eriro’s all-inclusive package includes activities from barefoot forest hikes and meditation, to mountain biking, climbing and, naturally, superb skiing.
Treehouse
Manchester, UK
Behind its angular anodyne modern façade, Treehouse Manchester lets rip with a whimsical eco-chic design garlanded with hanging greenery, intended to evoke a forest canopy and childlike excitement about nature. With another Treehouse recently opened in Silicon Valley – tech titans can savour what they missed while coding their youth away – and a well-established London sibling, its 224 rooms and suits offer “perfectly imperfect” charm with colourful patchwork quilts, cushions and curtains, upcycled wood furniture, wall shingles, retro phones, kettles and cuckoo clocks.
The natural vibe continues in Pip Restaurant where local chef Mary-Ellen McTague, formerly of Manchester’s acclaimed Aumbry, serves low-waste farm-to-table dishes celebrating seasonal regional produce including celeriac and caramelised onion butter pie. Sip a rooftop bar cocktail while gazing through foliage across the Victorian city centre or catch the in-house cinema’s Friday-night classic movies: it’s all smartly curated fun.
