Opening 2027

Mandarin Oriental

Mandarin Oriental, Porto Cervo

Name: Mandarin Oriental, Porto Cervo
Address: Porto Cervo, Sardinia, Italy

Mandarin Oriental lands on the Costa Smeralda

Porto Cervo, Sardinia, Italy

We'll come back the moment rates load — with what we'd book, and why.

First look

Mandarin Oriental is building on the Costa Smeralda, on the forested slopes above the Gulf of Pevero at Porto Cervo. This one is a new build rather than a takeover of an existing hotel, developed with the Italian property group Gruppo Statuto. The plan is 83 rooms and suites, five restaurants and bars, a Spa at Mandarin Oriental, a fitness centre, indoor and outdoor pools, and a beach club down at Porto Paglia.

The date has already moved once. Mandarin Oriental announced the project in August 2023 for a mid-2026 opening, and coverage since then puts it at 2027, with no month attached. Worth knowing if you are planning around it, and worth knowing alongside the other arrival on this coast: Cheval Blanc is relaunching Hotel Pitrizza a few minutes away, currently slated for May 2027. Two brands of that size landing on the same stretch of Sardinian coast in the same year has not happened before.

We haven't stayed, so this is anticipation, not a verdict. What we'll be watching: whether a new build can sit convincingly on a coast whose best-loved hotels are 1960s granite and terracotta, and how the Costa Smeralda's short season shapes what is actually open when you get there. We'll find out when we visit.

Not yet scored. We publish a Fat Score only once a hotel is open and real guests have stayed and written about it — this is a first look, not a verdict.

Sofie, who runs the Fat Voyage booking desk with Nicolas

Want us to get you in when it opens?

Nothing to book yet — rates usually load a few months out. We're Sofie and Nicolas; tell us roughly what you're after and we'll come back the moment Mandarin Oriental, Porto Cervo is bookable, with rates, what the rooms are actually like, and whether we'd go in the first season.

You'll be dealing with the two of us the whole way through, which is why we only take on a handful of trips at a time — if we're full, we'll say so. We reply by email, usually within one working day. The hotel pays us, not you: your rate is the same as booking direct, and the perks come on top.

Before it opens

When does Mandarin Oriental, Porto Cervo open?

Mandarin Oriental announced it in August 2023 for mid-2026, and that has since moved to 2027. No month has been confirmed. Dates on Costa Smeralda projects move, so treat it as expected rather than fixed.

How many rooms will it have, and what else is on site?

Plans put it at 83 rooms and suites, with five restaurants and bars, a Spa at Mandarin Oriental, a fitness centre, indoor and outdoor pools, and a beach club on Porto Paglia beach. It is being developed with the Italian real estate group Gruppo Statuto.

Open now

What you can book today

Mandarin Oriental, Porto Cervo is still under wraps. Here's what's already open and scored in our collection — more from Mandarin Oriental, and nearby in Italy.

Fat Favorite

Mandarin Oriental

Mandarin Oriental, Lake Como

Lake Como, Italy

The reason to book is the villa and that pool, and both hold up. Guests who've stayed on multiple lakes call the floating pool the best they've experienced anywhere, and it's the kind of thing you can't get elsewhere on Como: it sways when boats pass, and it sits right on the water in front of a 19th-century building with gardens people are still talking about years later. The upgrades and small gestures come up constantly too: a phone charger cord wrapped in velcro, a birthday treat waiting in the room, a golden retriever treated like a guest in its own right. The staff culture is the other real reason to go — Alicia at the spa desk and Isabella in guest relations get thanked by name, and the tone across most stays is warm rather than stiff or performative. Where the money doesn't stretch as far: check-in has run past an hour more than once this year, sometimes worse at night, and small requests (a hard pillow, a toothbrush, extra water) have been fumbled or taken two hours to show up. That points to being understaffed rather than uncaring, but it's still not what you expect at this rate. The food is the clearest letdown — breakfast draws repeated complaints about being thin for a five-star property, and L'Aria gets flagged for confusing portions and 30-euro cocktails that leave you hungry. The recommended transfers also run well above what a taxi or Uber costs locally, which is worth knowing before you book one rather than after. Book this for the villa, the gardens, and that pool, with a staff that genuinely seems to enjoy the work. Treat the restaurants as optional and use the Como town shuttle for dinner when you want more choice, which plenty of guests already do.

Fat Legend

Mandarin Oriental

Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand

Almost everyone who writes about the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok lands on the same thing: the staff remember you. One guest found a bookmark placed exactly where she'd left off in her book. Another was recognized by a therapist she hadn't seen in a decade. A butler named Maria found extra boxes to protect a couple's souvenirs at packing time, after four nights of what they called the most attentive service they'd had anywhere. One regular says new staff greeted her by name on a return visit, purely from training, since none of them had met her before. That's the reason people keep coming back instead of trying Capella or the newer Aman down the river. The catch is space, and it's a fair one. A Deluxe Premier Room in the River Wing runs around $500 a night in low season for about 42 square meters, comfortable but noticeably tighter than what Four Seasons or Capella gives you at similar money, and several guests have said so without any bitterness about it. The rooms show the building's age in the standard categories, even with the 150th-anniversary refresh and the new gym (ice plunge, sauna, genuinely well liked) landing well. Breakfast and the common areas can turn chaotic during a wedding or a corporate event, and the riverside setting that makes the evening views so good also means real traffic time if Sukhumvit is where you actually need to be. Book it for the service and for a hotel that's been doing this for nearly 150 years and still means it, not for square footage. If a bigger, more modern standard room matters more to you than history, Four Seasons is the name people keep raising. If you want to feel looked after in a way that seems to run deeper than a training manual, this is still the one.

Fat Approved

Mandarin Oriental

Mandarin Oriental Bodrum

Bodrum, Turkey

Mandarin Oriental Bodrum earns its keep on the hillside, not just the brochure line about it. Rooms cascade down toward Paradise Bay, several with their own pools, and the grounds are genuinely green rather than landscaped for a photo. The spa is the other reason people come back: one guest's contact lens emergency got solved by a therapist who tracked down a lens case and saline mid-treatment, and the hammam gets called out on its own terms often enough that it's clearly not a fluke. Families do well here too, with a kids' club that parents actually praise rather than tolerate, and an ambassador system that handles the small stuff: one guest's lost phone got traced through a taxi driver and returned before checkout. The gap opens at the waterline. Beach and pool service lags well behind the rest of the property, particularly by September, when one guest gave up after asking three times for a beer that never came. Food and drink pricing is a real sore point too: a chicken wrap near €50, cocktails around €28, and quality that regularly doesn't back it up, including a flat night at the on-site Ferdi Baba. Visit in October and you'll find restaurants and shops closing early for the season, which thins out what the rate is meant to cover once August ends. Book it from May through September for the setting, the spa team, and a beach scene that still has energy, and go in knowing the beach bars are where the wheels come off. Outside peak summer, or on the outer beach service specifically, price your expectations down accordingly. For the hillside, the hammam, and the way the team on the ground treats you, it's worth booking.

Fat Approved

Mandarin Oriental

Mandarin Oriental Downtown, Dubai

Dubai, UAE

This opened in late 2025 inside the Wasl Tower on Sheikh Zayed Road, and what you're paying for is a genuinely new building done properly: junior suites with big balconies and freestanding tubs, a two-floor spa with its own vitality pool, and a gym that multiple people call the best hotel gym they've used in Dubai. The breakfast buffet and the French toast come up so often across so many stays that it reads less like a fluke and more like the kitchen actually cares, and dinner at the Chinese restaurant, Yù & Mì, particularly the Peking duck, gets named as the highlight of more than one trip. The building's layout is the real catch worth pricing in: the lobby sits on floor 36, rooms run below it, and the pool and spa are on 11, so getting from your room to the pool means passing back through the lobby, wet towel and all. Guests who booked Club access found it inconsistent, with the lounge closed on some stays and swapped for afternoon tea with little variation night to night. One family visiting over Eid found the pool taken over by children with the lifeguards struggling to manage it, which is worth knowing if you're after a quiet swim rather than a lively one. None of that is enough to sink a stay, and it comes from a small share of the reports; most guests come away talking about specific staff who went out of their way for them rather than about the elevators. This suits someone who wants a new, design-forward city hotel near Dubai Mall and DIFC over one on the beach, with a kitchen and spa staff worth the trip on their own. Travelers chasing round-the-clock privacy and total quiet tend to land at the Bulgari instead. For a downtown stay with a proper gym and a breakfast people fly back for, book this one.

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