The most stylish hotel debuts of 2025

The new year brings travel into focus. While the months ahead may herald anticipated openings, 2025 has already delivered a series of assured arrivals – hotels led by design, intent and context. From Taipei’s first luxury opening in over a decade to the long-awaited Chancery Rosewood, and a Saudi resort carved into the landscape itself, these projects stand apart. Each has a singular character, and each is worth the journey.

The best hotel openings of 2025

Capella Taipei

Long-awaited in the Taiwanese capital, Capella Taipei marked the city’s first true luxury hotel debut in over a decade. Conceived by André Fu, the hotel occupies part of a newly built glass tower by Tokyo’s Mori Building Group, unfolding as a modern urban mansion shaped by the Hong Kong-born designer’s own encounters with Taipei. The 86-room property sits in a calm, subtle palette, where bespoke fixtures and artisanal details form a sophisticated urban bolthole. Four on-site restaurants sharpen the hotel’s profile, while the dramatic Glasshouse crowns the ensemble with a three-storey bar complex. A minimalist spa, finished with beige barrel-vaulted ceilings, completes the picture with celestial, lunar-led treatments.

Capella Taipei is located at No. 139, DunHua N Rd, Songshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 105

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The Chancery Rosewood

Once Eero Saarinen’s modernist vision of American diplomacy, the former US Embassy on Grosvenor Square re-emerged this year as The Chancery Rosewood. A sensitive restoration saw British architect Sir David Chipperfield and French interior designer Joseph Dirand recast the Grade II-listed landmark as an all-suite hotel defined by Rosewood’s high-touch hospitality. Across 144 suites, softened geometries, tactile layering, and a palette of neutrals and burnished tones create a cocooning sense of calm; a language echoed through all public spaces and the Asaya Spa. Eight restaurants and bars introduce their own unhurried atmospheres, including the first European outpost of New York institution Carbone and Japanese chef Masa Takayama’s Tobi Masa. Meanwhile, the seventh-floor Eagle Bar opens onto panoramic views across London.

The Chancery Rosewood is located at 30 Grosvenor Sq, London W1K 9AN, UK

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Desert Rock Resort

Set within Saudi Arabia’s dramatic Hejaz mountains, Desert Rock Resort rises directly from millennia-old granite. Fifty-four villas and ten suites feel almost geological. Conceived by Oppenheim Architecture, the resort doesn’t impose itself on the terrain; it yields to it. Stone quarried during construction was folded back into the architecture. Studio Paolo Ferrari brought the same reverence to the interiors, allowing the raw power of the setting to remain the focal point. Dining unfolds across Nyra’s elemental wood-fire kitchen, Mica’s forward-thinking cocktail programme, Basalt’s reassuring comfort dishes, and Wadi’s lively poolside scene. On the valley’s far edge sits the spa, built against a towering rock face.

Desert Rock Resort is located at 7GQVP67Q+5P 48561, Saudi Arabia

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The Eve Hotel Sydney

The Eve Hotel Sydney arrived as a vibrant new marker on the cusp of the Central Business District. Designed as a warm brick-and-biophilic low-rise by local firm SJB, with landscape architect Daniel Baffsky and interior designer George Livissianis, the hotel balances architectural restraint with bursts of colour. The 102 rooms, hued to the Australian bush, each feature balconies overlooking shingled rooftops and greenery. On the food front, guests can choose between Bar Julius, a European-inflected lobby bar, and Lottie, the rooftop Mexican restaurant and mezcaleria. Also upstairs, the Sukabumi-tiled rooftop pool beckons, though the surrounding mix of native and exotic flora demands equal attention.

The Eve Hotel Sydney is located at 8 Baptist St, Redfern NSW 2016, Australia

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Few & Far Luvhondo

Husband-and-wife adventurers Jacob and Sarah Dusek introduced Few & Far Luvhondo, a safari eco-lodge offering front-row access to the raw wilderness of South Africa’s Limpopo province. Designed by Nicholas Plewman Architects in collaboration with Ohkre Collective, the lodge’s six cliff-edge suites take their sculptural cues from Africa’s most emblematic trees, notably the monumental baobabs that anchor the surrounding landscape. Nature continues indoors, where clay-toned earths, sky blues and deep greens echo the terrain. In the kitchen, chef Nhlakanipho Soxhela leads a thoughtful farm-to-table programme celebrating regional cooking. Days unfold through immersive encounters with land and culture, from daily game drives to outdoor yoga sessions or guided mindfulness practices.

Few & Far Luvhondo is located at R523, Waterpoort, 3813, South Africa

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La Fondation

Once a parking lot, La Fondation emerged as a brutalist shell softened by warm hues and muted tones that ripple through its ten floors. Paris-based architecture firm PCA-STREAM reimagined the exterior, while New York studio Roman and Williams infused the interiors with a modern, eclectic character, accented by nods to Piet Mondrian’s De Stijl palette and geometry. Muted tones and artisanal detailing define the 58 guest rooms, and two on-site dining venues offer a mix of French classics and contemporary dishes overseen by chef Thomas Rossi. The latest opening from Groupe Galia also introduces open co-working areas, a health club with a climbing wall, a spa with a semi-Olympic pool, and a rooftop garden with views from Sacré-Cœur to the Eiffel Tower.

La Fondation is located at 40 Rue Legendre, 75017 Paris, France

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Patina Osaka

With the Osaka Expo pulling global focus, Patina Osaka debuted at just the right moment. Set in a 20-storey glass tower by Jun Mitsui & Associates Inc. Architects, the property, which marked the Japan debut for the Singapore-based group, sits between the Osaka Castle and Naniwa-no-Miya-Ato Park. Tokyo-based studio Strickland shaped the interiors with crisp Japanese geometries, softened by sculptural curves and copper accents that nod to the castle. Five dining concepts anchor the hotel, fronted by P72, where Japan’s 72 micro-seasons inform dishes served beneath a dramatic timber ‘roots’ installation. The Patina Spa is the real draw, offering hyperbaric oxygen, cryotherapy and holistic treatments for a full-spectrum reset.

Patina Osaka is located at 3-91, Banba-cho, Chuo-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka, 540-0007, Japan

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The Standard, Pattaya Na Jomtien

A ten-building beach resort with plenty of swagger became The Standard’s fourth outpost in Thailand, pairing luxury with the brand’s trademark wit and creative flair. Led by the group’s global head of design, Verena Haller, alongside DIN Studio and Studio Lupine, The Standard Pattaya Na Jomtien occupies a sculptural white complex by Thai firm Onion, whose undulating curves echo their work for The Standard Bangkok and Hua Hin. Its 161 rooms, offered in seven generous configurations, feature high ceilings and sunlight-drenched spaces. Dining spans Sereia, an elegant seafood restaurant sourcing from Thailand’s eastern seaboard, and Esmé, a beach bar channelling CDMX street food. The adults-only spa, Mmhmmm, embraces the mud-bathing renaissance with a dedicated outdoor terrace for the ritual.

The Standard, Pattaya Na Jomtien is located at 8/12 Moo 2, Soi Na Jomtien 10, Na Jomtien, Sattahip, Chonburi 20250, Thailand

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Villa Dubrovnik

Long a friend of Wallpaper,* Brazilian architect Arthur Casas and his studio led the reimagining of Villa Dubrovnik, the 1961 modernist landmark perched dramatically above the Dalmatian coast. Guided by the Croatian philosophy of fjaka –an artful devotion to unhurried living – the interiors are measured and serene, grounded in local tradition. Custom blankets and cushions, woven with patterns drawn from regional dialects, thread a quiet sense of place through all 56 rooms. Dining unfolds across moods: Restaurant Pjerin for refined dégustation or à la carte dining, Giardino for relaxed lunches, and aperitivo-worthy views at Libero Bar or the rooftop Galanto Bar. When the Adriatic sun takes its toll, the spa delivers restorative facials, massages, and exfoliating rituals.

Villa Dubrovnik is located at Ul. Vlaha Bukovca 6, 20000, Dubrovnik, Croatia

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W New York – Union Square

W Hotels’ evolution trades party-first theatrics for grown-up confidence, without losing its spark. The shift is clearest at W New York – Union Square, the global flagship, alongside newer openings in Florence and Budapest. Opened in 2000, the hotel has been reimagined by original architects Rockwell Group with a lighter, more assured hand. Its 256 rooms and suites balance scale with playfulness. On the food front, Seahorse pairs heritage and modernity with unmistakable New York ease; the high-energy Living Room (once a ballroom) serves cocktails and light bites, flowing into the laid-back Living Room Café; and upstairs, the 17th floor is home to Union Square’s only rooftop bar.

W New York – Union Square is located at 1567 Broadway, New York, NY 10036, United States

Read our full review of W New York – Union Square