The sweet spot

Fat Favorite

Fat Favorite is where the most-loved properties sit, with a Fat Score between 17.0 and 17.5. Exceptional in most dimensions, with the occasional soft spot worth knowing about. These are the properties regulars return to.

52properties

Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at Sultanahmet — Istanbul, Turkey

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at Sultanahmet

Istanbul, Turkey

This is the old-town choice: a former prison turned 65-room courtyard hotel, a few minutes' walk from the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, and the reason people keep coming back is the staff, not the…

Raffles Udaipur — Udaipur, India

Raffles

Raffles Udaipur

Book Raffles Udaipur for the island itself, not just the Raffles name on the door. It sits on its own patch of Udai Sagar, reached by a short dhow boat crossing, and almost every recent guest writes…

COMO The Halkin — London, United Kingdom

Como

COMO The Halkin

London, United Kingdom

Pammy Liu comes up more than anyone else in the stack of reviews on this place, and for good reason: one traveller missed a flight entirely and she rebooked the room on the spot, no fuss, no charge…

Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris — Paris, France

Mandarin Oriental

Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris

The pitch here is simple: it's the only palace-grade hotel on the Left Bank, so you get Saint-Germain and Le Bon Marché instead of the Right Bank palace circuit. People who've done the Ritz, the…

The Siam — Bangkok, Thailand

Independent

The Siam

Bangkok, Thailand

Bill Bensley built this around the Sukosol family's own antique collection, and under 40 keys means it reads more like a private house than a hotel: a vinyl room, a boxing ring, a cinema, a music room…

Awasi Patagonia — Torres del Paine, Chile

Independent

Awasi Patagonia

Torres del Paine, Chile

No one else in Torres del Paine gives you a private guide and private vehicle per villa. Stay at Explora or Tierra and you're on a shared group itinerary; at Awasi, guests describe their guide…

Deplar Farm — Troll Peninsula, Iceland

Independent

Deplar Farm

Troll Peninsula, Iceland

Sixteen rooms, something like 75 staff, and roughly $5,000 a night all-in on the Troll Peninsula. That ratio is the whole story. Guests who've also done Aman keep reaching for that comparison, then…

Four Seasons Hotel Firenze — Florence, Italy

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Hotel Firenze

Florence, Italy

The garden is what you're paying for as much as the room. Eleven acres, the largest private grounds in central Florence, and you walk through the gate and the city noise just stops, even though the…

La Réserve Paris — Paris, France

Independent

La Réserve Paris

Breakfast runs about €35, suites start well into four figures, and almost nobody who's stayed here talks about the building first. They talk about being taken care of: a concierge team that spent 48…

The Dolder Grand — Zurich, Switzerland

Independent

The Dolder Grand

Zurich, Switzerland

The pitch is a castle on a hill above Zurich, with a Norman Foster wing grafted onto the 1899 original, and it mostly delivers. Guests who've stayed three, four, a dozen times keep coming back for the…

Four Seasons Surf Club — Miami, USA

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Surf Club

No other hotel in Miami has this building: a restored 1930 prohibition-era beach club with coffered ceilings and arched corridors, a hotel and two residential towers grafted onto it by an owner who'd…

One&Only The Palm — Dubai, UAE

One&Only

One&Only The Palm

Ninety-five rooms is the whole pitch here, and reading through years of stays, it holds up: staff remember guests by name, by drink, by last visit. Andrew talked one couple through their entire…

Aman-i-Khas — Ranthambore, India

Aman

Aman-i-Khas

Ranthambore, India

This is ten tents on the edge of a national park, and the case for it is almost entirely the people running it. Guests describe a general manager, Kishan, who took one couple to a village wedding…

Capella Ubud — Ubud, Indonesia

Capella

Capella Ubud

Ubud, Indonesia

Capella Ubud gets talked about for two things: Bill Bensley's tented design and staff who seem to know your schedule by day two. Vidi the duty manager keeps coming up as the one who makes people feel…

Cheval Blanc Randheli — Noonu Atoll, Maldives

Cheval Blanc

Cheval Blanc Randheli

Noonu Atoll, Maldives

A week here runs somewhere around $4,000 a night once you're in the top villas, and what you get for it is genuinely hard to find elsewhere in the Maldives: identical, enormous villa layouts whether…

One&Only Reethi Rah — North Malé Atoll, Maldives

One&Only

One&Only Reethi Rah

North Malé Atoll, Maldives

One&Only Reethi Rah is 109 acres and a dozen beaches, and the thing that actually justifies the fare is the staff, not the real estate. Guests write in with names, not adjectives: a butler called…

Amanzoe — Porto Heli, Greece

Aman

Amanzoe

Porto Heli, Greece

Amanzoe is the rare Aman where guests who've done four, five, even eleven of these properties still call it their favorite. The pavilions and villas run enormous, most well over 2,000 square feet,…

Amanfayun — Hangzhou, China

Aman

Amanfayun

Hangzhou, China

What you're paying for at Amanfayun isn't the room. It's a reconstructed Longjing tea village strung along a stream beside Lingyin Temple, with monk-led chants at Yongfu at dawn and a footpath gate…

Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris — Paris, France

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris

The George V costs what a palace hotel in the eighth costs, and for that money most people who actually check in get exactly what they came for: a newly renovated room with a Dyson dryer and blackout…

Hotel Cipriani, A Belmond Hotel, Venice — Venice, Italy

Belmond

Hotel Cipriani, A Belmond Hotel, Venice

The case for the Cipriani starts with the pool. It's the largest in Venice, set inside gardens people describe as immaculate, and it turns a city built entirely of stone and canals into somewhere you…

The Peninsula Hong Kong — Hong Kong, China

The Peninsula

The Peninsula Hong Kong

Hong Kong, China

People describe the same things when they come back from The Peninsula: a Director of Front Office sending a handwritten birthday card with a blueberry cake waiting in the room, a doorman who…

Cheval Blanc Paris — Paris, France

Cheval Blanc

Cheval Blanc Paris

Cheval Blanc Paris is LVMH's argument that a 72-room hotel on the Seine doesn't need a single gilt mirror to compete with the Ritz or Le Meurice, and most guests who stay come away agreeing. Peter…

Amandari — Ubud, Indonesia

Aman

Amandari

Ubud, Indonesia

Amandari opened in 1989 as the second Aman ever built, and it still runs on that idea: a cluster of thatched-roof villas built to look like a Balinese village, stacked into a ravine above the Ayung…

Mandarin Oriental Jumeira, Dubai — Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Mandarin Oriental

Mandarin Oriental Jumeira, Dubai

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

This is the Dubai hotel people keep going back to, and the reviews back that up: one guest was on their seventh stay, another has been coming for years and still asks for the same staff by name. What…

The Peninsula Bangkok — Bangkok, Thailand

The Peninsula

The Peninsula Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand

A room here starts well above what a new-build riverside tower charges in Bangkok, and what you get for it is a hotel that still runs like an old grand hotel should: met at the car, walked to the…

The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel — New York, USA

Rosewood

The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel

A room here starts around $1,400 a night and a basic deluxe king can run closer to $1,200 before taxes, and what you get for it is a hotel that still feels like a hotel rather than a lobby full of…

The Peninsula London — London, United Kingdom

The Peninsula

The Peninsula London

London, United Kingdom

The Peninsula London cost a billion pounds to build, and it shows the moment you open the door on a base Deluxe or Premier room: walk-in closets, double-sink bathrooms with Toto washlets, and a…

The Emory — London, United Kingdom

Maybourne

The Emory

London, United Kingdom

The Emory is Maybourne's one real departure from the Claridge's/Connaught script: Richard Rogers' glass box across from Hyde Park, 61 keys, all-suite, barely a lobby, sharing a spa and rooftop with…

The Berkeley — London, United Kingdom

Maybourne

The Berkeley

London, United Kingdom

Doorman after doorman turns up by name across these reviews: Mohamed and Danny at the front door, Waleed finding a junior suite before check-in and sending up coffee while the room was finished, Sofie…

Four Seasons Hotel London at Tower Bridge — London, United Kingdom

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Hotel London at Tower Bridge

London, United Kingdom

Edwin Cooper's 1922 Port of London Authority headquarters at Ten Trinity Square is now a Four Seasons, and the building does most of the convincing before a single staff member says hello: five-metre…

Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane — London, United Kingdom

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane

London, United Kingdom

What you're paying for at Park Lane isn't drama, it's competence. Andrei's team remembered a diaper pail request without being asked twice; Amanda in events kept a full family baptism running smoothly…

Le Royal Monceau - Raffles Paris — Paris, France

Raffles

Le Royal Monceau - Raffles Paris

Most Paris palace hotels compete on gilt; this one competes on personality. Philippe Starck's redesign, with its 350-plus pieces of art scattered through the public spaces and rooms, gives the place a…

Four Seasons Resort Mallorca at Formentor — Mallorca, Spain

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Resort Mallorca at Formentor

Mallorca, Spain

This is a former 1929 hotel rebuilt inside its original footprint, with every single room turned to face the water instead of the hill behind it, and it shows: even the entry-level Pine View rooms get…

Belmond Mount Nelson — Cape Town, South Africa

Belmond

Belmond Mount Nelson

Cape Town, South Africa

The pink Cape Dutch buildings and gardens under Table Mountain are what people picture, but the reason people keep coming back is afternoon tea. Sommeliers like Zodwa and Craig walk guests through…

Mandarin Oriental, Lake Como — Lake Como, Italy

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…

The Peninsula Istanbul — Istanbul, Turkey

The Peninsula

The Peninsula Istanbul

Istanbul, Turkey

The case for The Peninsula Istanbul is where it sits, not how polished the staff are on a given night. It's on the water in Karaköy, and unlike the Çırağan Palace Kempinski or the Four Seasons…

Ritz Paris — Paris, France

Independent

Ritz Paris

Place Vendôme is still the address every other Paris palace gets measured against, and the room backs it up: deluxe junior suites on the upper floors are genuinely quiet, the water pressure is a…

Four Seasons Ritz Lisbon — Lisbon, Portugal

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Ritz Lisbon

Lisbon, Portugal

The case for the Ritz Lisbon is almost entirely about the people running it, not the rooms themselves. Doormen and housekeeping who greet you like they mean it, a concierge team that produces Benfica…

&Beyond Ngorongoro Crater Lodge — Ngorongoro, Tanzania

Independent

&Beyond Ngorongoro Crater Lodge

Ngorongoro, Tanzania

You're paying close to four thousand dollars a night to sleep on the actual rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, and for most people who've done it, that's exactly what arrives: a private butler, a decorated…

Eden Rock St Barths — St Barthélemy, France

Oetker Collection

Eden Rock St Barths

St Barthélemy, France

Eden Rock is still the reason St. Barths became a luxury address, and it beats out more polished neighbors like Cheval Blanc or Le Toiny on personality alone. Trip reports keep landing on the same…

La Mamounia — Marrakech, Morocco

Independent

La Mamounia

Marrakech, Morocco

La Mamounia is the hotel that makes people write paragraphs instead of a sentence about where they stayed in Marrakech. Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku's restoration, the tiled archways, the Pierre…

One&Only Cape Town — Cape Town, South Africa

One&Only

One&Only Cape Town

Cape Town, South Africa

Almost every traveller who stays at One&Only Cape Town comes home naming a specific person: Menzi, who anticipated requests before they were asked, or Zaza, or Elton at the Vista Bar. One guest…

Post Ranch Inn — Big Sur, USA

Independent

Post Ranch Inn

Nothing else on this coast does what Post Ranch Inn does: forty rooms strung along a Big Sur cliff, treehouses and glass-walled ocean rooms built by Mickey Muennig so the redwoods and the Pacific…

Amilla Maldives — Baa Atoll, Maldives

Independent

Amilla Maldives

Baa Atoll, Maldives

Amilla puts you inside the Baa Atoll biosphere reserve, and that's the reason to book before anything else: manta rays a short boat ride out, a house reef you can swim into straight from an overwater…

Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru — Baa Atoll, Maldives

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru

Baa Atoll, Maldives

The case for Landaa Giraavaru starts with the atoll, not the villa. Baa is a UNESCO Marine Biosphere Reserve, and serious divers keep saying the same thing: staying inside it beats commuting to it…

Raffles Singapore — Singapore, Singapore

Raffles

Raffles Singapore

Singapore, Singapore

Book Raffles for the all-suite rooms and the staff who seem to have been doing this since 1887. That's the pattern across nearly every recent stay: a doorman named Narendra greeting returning guests…

Six Senses Fort Barwara — Sawai Madhopur, India

Six Senses

Six Senses Fort Barwara

Sawai Madhopur, India

The restoration does the heavy lifting: vaulted corridors, a pool guests keep singling out as the best part of the grounds, and rooms (even the entry Sanctuary Suite) big enough for a family of four…

Taj Lake Palace — Udaipur, India

Taj

Taj Lake Palace

There's no faking a 1743 palace floating in the middle of a lake, and that's really the whole case for the Taj Lake Palace. The boat transfer, the rose petals and ceremonial umbrella at the jetty, a…

Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva — Geneva, Switzerland

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva

Geneva, Switzerland

This is the oldest hotel in Geneva, built in 1834 on the lake, and it mostly still acts like it: the frescoes and gilded ceilings are original, the rooms were recently redone, and the top-floor…

One&Only Palmilla — Los Cabos, Mexico

One&Only

One&Only Palmilla

Los Cabos, Mexico

People come back to One&Only Palmilla year after year for one reason above all: the staff remember them. Guests describe assigned pool loungers held for the whole stay, hosts who fix a problem before…

Villa San Michele, A Belmond Hotel, Florence — Florence, Italy

Belmond

Villa San Michele, A Belmond Hotel, Florence

Florence, Italy

A restored fifteenth-century monastery on a hill above Florence, its facade traditionally attributed to Michelangelo, is not a normal hotel pitch, and the reviews back it up: people describe walking…

The Peninsula Paris — Paris, France

The Peninsula

The Peninsula Paris

The rooms are the argument: this is where Paris's palace tier gets you the most space, closets that function as dressing rooms, a makeup table with a built-in nail-polish dryer, curtains and climate…