Savoy Palace

Savoy Palace

Madeira is the kind of island that people discover once and return to annually for the rest of their lives, which is either a recommendation or a warning depending on your relationship with routine. The climate is subtropical and benign year-round, the landscape is volcanic and vertiginous, the levadas wind through laurel forest that has been UNESCO-listed since 1999, and Funchal, the capital, is a proper city with a market, a cathedral, a cable car, and a food culture built around the Atlantic on its doorstep. The Savoy Palace opened in 2018 on the site of Madeira's original Savoy hotel, which had welcomed European aristocracy since 1918, and the new building, designed by Funchal-born architect Nini Andrade Silva, is an unmistakable presence on the waterfront: a wave-like silhouette of 16 floors rising above the sea, with interiors that take the island's laurel forests and volcanic topography as their primary reference. The 352 rooms and 43 suites are spread across those 16 floors, most with private balconies and Atlantic views, the best suites with private plunge pools and wraparound terraces. The three-storey suspended light installation in the reception, crafted from miles of matte metal chain, announces early that this is a hotel with architectural confidence. The Laurea Spa, named for the island's endemic laurel tree and the largest spa in Portugal, runs to 11 treatment rooms, an indoor-outdoor pool complex with waterfalls, a champagne and nails bar, and a fitness centre built with the same seriousness as the rest of the building. Galáxia Skyfood on the 16th floor is the fine dining proposition, chef Carlos Gonçalves cooking a tasting menu under a star-flecked ceiling with all of Funchal below. The rooftop infinity pool, reserved for suite guests, and the adults-only pool add useful layers of privacy in a hotel of this scale. This is a hotel that works for people who want Madeira properly, the levada walks, the Monte Palace Tropical Gardens, the whale watching, the local wine, and who want to return to something genuinely impressive at the end of the day. The old town is walkable, the cable car station is close, and the hotel's scale, which might read as impersonal on paper, is offset by the quality of the interiors and the consistency of the service. The short version: A 352-room Leading Hotel of the World on Funchal's waterfront, opened in 2018 on the site of Madeira's original Savoy, with the largest spa in Portugal, a 16th-floor fine dining restaurant, and interiors designed by Nini Andrade Silva that take the island's landscape as their starting point.