The Bodrum EDITION

The Bodrum EDITION

Opened in the summer of 2018 on the western tip of the Bodrum peninsula, in the wind-sheltered cove of Yalikavak Bay, three kilometres from Yalikavak Marina and within minutes of Bodrum Castle and the ancient amphitheatre of a city once known as Halicarnassus, The Bodrum EDITION is the product of a partnership between Ian Schrager, the New York hotelier and co-founder of Studio 54 who has spent four decades reinventing what a hotel can be, and Marriott International, who supplied the operational infrastructure while Schrager supplied the concept, the programming, and the creative direction. The property was designed by Christophe Pillet, a French industrial designer whose restraint keeps the whole place from tipping into spectacle, and covers 72,200 square feet of horseshoe-shaped grounds that cascade from an open-air glass atrium at the top of the hill down to a 350-foot beach with a private jetty and cabanas. There are 110 rooms, suites, bungalows, and a four-bedroom private villa, most with Aegean views, many with private terraces or plunge pools, the villa with its own full pool and sauna. The interiors run on a quiet palette of stone floors, hand-cut local marble, warm wood, and airy linens, with 366 native olive trees planted throughout the grounds and almost 30,000 white pebbles worked into the paths and surfaces, all of it drawing materially from what the Turkish coast actually looks like rather than imposing something foreign onto it. Bathrooms are marble with deep soaking tubs, rain showerheads, and Le Labo products throughout. The food programme is serious: KITCHEN, led by chef Osman Sezener, one of the pioneers of the farm-to-table movement on the Aegean coast and holder of a Michelin star for three consecutive years, works with produce from the hotel's own gardens and neighbouring farms, serving North Aegean octopus, Bodrum sea bream, and Bargilya shrimp alongside a Turkish breakfast that is included in all rates and is, on its own, worth the alarm. BRAVA, the hotel's Italian restaurant, operates under chef Stefano Ciotti, who brings his own Michelin recognition to the gig. The spa runs across 14 treatment rooms, including a traditional hammam, a salt treatment room, sauna, steam room, and plunge pool, with several treatments available in outdoor cabanas at the water's edge. The experience here is genuinely resort-coded, in the best and most considered sense, a property built for people who want to stay put rather than use the hotel as a base, who want to float between an infinity pool and a Michelin-starred lunch and a hammam scrub without feeling like they're doing something embarrassing. The scale is large enough that you never feel the social pressure of a small boutique, small enough that you don't disappear into it. The clientele in high season skews toward superyacht-adjacent, moneyed, and European, with a DJ-led beach club that is not shy about itself, the nightclub Discetto open through the small hours, and an atmosphere that rewards people who want to be seen as much as people who want to be left alone. September and early October are when the peninsula finds its better self, the heat less aggressive, the marina crowd thinned, KITCHEN still open and the hammam suddenly less of a queue. You should not come if you want the intimacy of a small Turkish property, a family-run guesthouse with ten rooms and a pension owner who knows the olive growers by name. The scale and the brand infrastructure mean that what you get here is a very good large hotel, not a small hotel that happens to be very good. You should come if the promise of one Michelin-starred dinner, one genuinely serious hammam, and a week of watching the Aegean from a private plunge pool sounds like enough, because it is. The short version: A 110-room resort on the western Bodrum peninsula, designed by Christophe Pillet for Ian Schrager, opened in 2018, with a Michelin-starred restaurant by Osman Sezener, a beach club with a jetty, and a hammam that earns its mention.