Mandarin Oriental Ritz Madrid

Mandarin Oriental Ritz Madrid

Madrid is one of Europe's great cities and one of its most consistently underestimated. It has no sea and no major river and no single landmark that concentrates global attention the way the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum does, which means that people tend to arrive with different expectations but leave totally converted. The food culture is serious in ways that have taken years to be properly recognised beyond Spain, the nightlife runs later than anywhere else on the continent and is better for it, and the art is simply extraordinary. Along the Paseo del Prado, the broad UNESCO-listed boulevard that runs through the heart of the city, three of the world's great museums stand within fifteen minutes' walk of each other: the Prado, whose collection of Velázquez, Goya, El Greco and Titian rivals any in the world; the Reina Sofía, which holds Picasso's Guernica and the full story of 20th-century Spanish art; and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, which bridges the two with everything from Flemish Old Masters to Hopper and the Impressionists. Together they constitute the densest single concentration of museum-grade art in Europe. The Retiro park, one of the great urban parks of the continent, is directly adjacent. The Salamanca neighbourhood, Madrid's finest shopping address, is a short walk north. The Hotel Ritz opened in 1910 at the personal instigation of King Alfonso XIII, who commissioned it from César Ritz and the French architect Charles Mewès after returning from a tour of European capitals and deciding Madrid lacked a hotel worthy of receiving royalty. The guest list in the intervening century is a reliable index of 20th-century history: Hemingway, Grace Kelly and Rainier of Monaco on honeymoon, Ava Gardner, Mata Hari, Haile Selassie, and a long roll-call of heads of state and crowned heads who required something at the level of the Ritz Paris or the Ritz London. The building's Belle Époque façade is a listed national monument. Mandarin Oriental acquired it in 2015, undertook a three-year, $100 million renovation designed by Parisian firm Gilles & Boissier, and reopened it in 2021 as a property that manages to honour what it has always been while making it thoroughly contemporary. The original glass dome over the central Palm Court has been restored. The 153 rooms and suites, including 53 suites, are individually designed in a residential style that feels settled and considered rather than recently installed, the named suites among the most extraordinary rooms in Madrid. The Prado Museum is across the street. The Thyssen is around the corner. The dining is overseen by Quique Dacosta, the three-Michelin-star Valencian chef, whose signature restaurant Deessa holds two Michelin stars of its own and serves a gastronomic menu that is one of the best reasons to stay in the building on any given evening. Palm Court under the glass dome handles afternoon tea and all-day dining. The Jardín del Ritz, a garden terrace, handles everything else. The spa, with indoor pool, vitality pool, steam room and treatment rooms, is among the finest in the city. The people who come here understand what the Ritz name means and what the Mandarin Oriental group does with it. It is the definitive address in Madrid for those for whom the definitive address is the point, and it earns that position without effort. The short version: The legendary Hotel Ritz, opened in 1910 at the behest of King Alfonso XIII, redesigned in 2021 by Gilles & Boissier for Mandarin Oriental. 153 rooms and suites on the Paseo del Prado, directly opposite the Prado Museum and steps from the Thyssen and Reina Sofía. Two-Michelin-star restaurant Deessa under Quique Dacosta, a restored Belle Époque glass dome, a garden terrace, and over a century of the finest guest list in Spain. The definitive Madrid address, without qualification.