L’AND Vineyards, URSO Hotel & Spa, Relais San Maurizio, Faro Capo-Spartivento, Bareiss, Das Stue
The 22-room L’AND Vineyards resort is set in countryside 90 minutes south of Lisbon, about 20 miles from Evora, the best-known town in the Alentejo. Designed by Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan, it comprises a striking modern main building and independent villa rooms situated around the adjacent swimming pool and among the vineyards. Increasingly, it is popular with Lisboans as a weekend getaway because of its Caudalie spa and notable restaurant.
Arriving at our Sky View Suite, we found a gas fireplace on the front terrace next to a pair of wood-and-leather armchairs. This turned out to be a pleasant place to sit after dinner, since nights are cool in the Alentejo even in the middle of summer. On a hot afternoon, however, the shadowy coolness of our spacious accommodations was very welcome. The comfortable set of rooms came with white walls and locally woven wool rugs. A wonderful bedroom had an electrically operated roof over the bed. This enabled us to gaze up at the stars and to breathe cool, clean country air. A spacious bath with black slate walls was equipped with an enormous soaking tub and separate shower.
At the restaurant, you can dine outside on a sheltered terrace with fine views over the surrounding countryside. Chef Miguel Laffan has a talent for using Portugal’s superb produce in appetizing and original dishes such as a game pie accompanied by a warm salad of cep mushrooms, a starter; and roasted Alentejo pork tenderloin, with cauliflower and asparagus gratin, peas and black pudding sausage.
Though the usual instinct when choosing a hotel in a European capital is to opt for a central location, sometimes a city is best discovered from a real-people neighborhood instead. The handsome new 78-room URSO Hotel & Spa is located in the Salesas district, which has much in common with New York City’s Greenwich Village or London’s Notting Hill. An arty and atmospheric area with lots of one-of-a-kind boutiques and excellent restaurants, it is nonetheless just 15 minutes from the Prado museum, ground zero for most visitors to Madrid.
The hotel occupies an elegant early 20th-century limestone palace that was renovated by Spanish hotelier Pablo Carrington, who also owns several properties in the Balearic Islands. He hired designer Antonio Obrador to create a look that highlights the original features of the building — wrought-iron balconies, stained glass, an Otis elevator — as a foil to modern rooms that come with hardwood floors, earth-tone color schemes, grasscloth-covered headboards, white cotton duvets and parchment lamp shades. This contrast between the traditional and the contemporary is even more successful in the hotel’s public spaces, including an attractive lobby with chinoiserie-style wallpaper and overstuffed chairs and sofas. Overall, the feeling is that of a patrician private house rather than a hotel.
The Table by restaurant showcases a different Spanish chef every month, with an emphasis on bringing young talent from the provinces to the capital. The URSO also features Madrid’s first branded luxury hotel spa, which uses products from Spanish skin care specialist Natura Bissé and includes a wood-lined lap pool and steam room.
Perched on a steep, vineyard-planted hillside just outside of the town of Santo Stefano Belbo, the 30-room Relais San Maurizio was built in 1619 as a Franciscan monastery. Surrounded by lovely gardens dotted with ancient cedar trees and modern sculptures, the property consists of two main buildings: the original manor house and a recently opened annex. Our suite in the handsome two-story brick annex was attractively furnished with a mix of contemporary Italian furniture and antiques. The bedroom contained a Jacuzzi, while the bath itself came with stylish Boffi fixtures. As the suite was on the ground floor, we had two private terrace gardens, one in front with a Jacuzzi and lovely views of the countryside, and the other in back. Overall, these discreetly luxurious lodgings were extremely well-designed, well-lit and comfortable.
Elsewhere, we discovered a delightful conservatory bar filled with flowering bougainvillea, potted plants and trees. The excellent Guido da Costigliole restaurant occupies a spectacular vaulted cellar. There, the dish not to miss proved to be the local Vicciola beef, which is exceptionally flavorful but so lean that it has less cholesterol than sea bass. The highlight of our afternoons was a visit to the spa, where we took reviving soaks in the brine pool, followed by turns in the salt grotto. Excellent massages and a variety of beauty treatments are also available. The Relais San Maurizio is a sophisticated country house hotel that updates the best of Italian style and hospitality.
The Faro Capo-Spartivento hotel, housed within an ocher-colored stone lighthouse built in 1856 by the Italian navy, has recently been converted into an intimate hotel with just six junior suites. The design of the hotel respects the original function of the structure, but renders it warm and comfortable, with details such as wide oak-plank floors, Murano glass chandeliers, white linen curtains and quarry stone-lined baths. Although slightly bemused by the circular bed in our suite, which followed the curves of the tower, we found our quarters to be unexpectedly plush and cozy.
The point of a stay at Faro Capo-Spartivento is relaxation. Aside from two nearby white-sand beaches fronting transparent turquoise water, there is little to do in the vicinity. The phone service can be interrupted by high winds, and the Internet connection is feeble. This turns out to be a gift, of course, since lounging beside the infinity pool with a book and getting lost in the ever-changing spectacle of the sea is profoundly therapeutic. Because of its remote location, we ate dinner at the hotel during our stay. Happily, the chef had worked in St. Moritz for many years, and his food was superb, with dishes such as octopus carpaccio, gnocchi with mussels in a zucchini sauce, and grilled tuna with herbs and tomatoes. The wine list was brief but interesting, and service in the dining room was courtly, quiet and English-speaking. We left Faro Capo-Spartivento with the intention to return one day, perhaps having rented the whole place for a family reunion.
I’ve always enjoyed the pastoral serenity to be found amid the rolling hills of southwestern Germany, but on this occasion, I’d decided to visit the little town of Baiersbronn because a friend had warmly recommended the Bareiss hotel. Arriving at the 99-room property, we were promptly ushered to a wonderful pastel-colored suite with a private balcony. The thickly carpeted salon came with a yellow damask-covered sofa, as well as a bar and writing desk, while the bedroom provided an oversize bed with feather duvets and ample closet space. The enormous bath was equipped with a whirlpool tub and sauna. Beyond their impressive degree of comfort, these quarters were immaculately clean and well-maintained.
The Bareiss is an overtly luxurious place, with landscaped gardens, five indoor and outdoor swimming pools, an outstanding spa and a variety of bars and restaurants. But what impressed me most during our visit was that the Bareiss family, which has owned the hotel over three generations, still practices the refined, old-fashioned European art of innkeeping. As expected, the highlight of our stay proved to be lunch at the Restaurant Bareiss, where chef Claus-Peter Lumpp boasts three Michelin stars. Highlights of the menu gastronomique were langoustines dressed with Imperial caviar, and three cuts of Swabian lamb — the rack, belly and sweetbreads — all of which were prepared differently and served with individual garnishes. Having savored this outstanding hotel during fall, I’m now looking forward to discovering it in winter, when guests take horse-drawn carriage rides through the snowy forest.
Until now, all of my recommended Berlin hotels have been in the Mitte district, the prewar heart of the city that continues to be an ideal neighborhood for first-time visitors. Recently, however — and somewhat to the surprise of the locals — the area that was West Berlin is becoming stylish again. A perfect symbol of its new chic is the 78-room Das Stue hotel, which opened in 2013 in a building that formerly housed the Royal Danish Embassy. The functionalist limestone structure was built from 1938-1940, apparently to the specifications of Third Reich architect Albert Speer. Perhaps because of its peculiar pedigree, the Danes were always rather reluctant occupants, and it was finally sold in 1978.
Milan-based designer Patricia Urquiola is responsible for the hotel’s décors, which display museum-quality contemporary art and photography. Rooms are divided between the original building and a modern annex, those in the former being preferable since they have more period character. Our Stue Suite came with herringbone parquet floors, high ceilings, large windows and a huge and very comfortable bed. Danish modern furniture spoke of the building’s past, and lighting throughout was impeccable.
We loved the hotel’s cozy bar with its friendly and hardworking bartender, and enjoyed a superb meal of tuna escabeche and morel mushroom rice with pork ribs and shrimp at Cinco, the excellent restaurant of Michelin-starred Catalan chef Paco Pérez. In addition to a delightful library, the hotel also has a small spa with a lap pool, three treatment rooms and a sauna.
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