No. 001 · 5 October 2026
Why eight
City guides list too many hotels. Forty best hotels is a directory. Eight is a decision, and each city here gets three of them, one for each kind of budget.
Where to stay · 8 cities · Updated 5 October 2026
Twenty-four hotels a city. Not one more.
Each city gets three ranked editions of eight: Luxury, Boutique and Value. Hotels are chosen from the published record. None pays to appear.
The cities
192 hotels
Japan24 hotels
Tokyo東京
Tokyo has twenty rooms in a 1923 bank annex and a ryokan seventeen storeys up in Otemachi.
Japan24 hotels
Kyoto京都
Kyoto has a ryokan open since about 1704 and a hotel built around a 1926 telephone exchange.
Australia24 hotels
Sydney
Sydney's hotels occupy its old sandstone offices and the timber wharves around the harbour.
Australia24 hotels
Melbourne
Melbourne's hotels run from the top of an 80-storey tower to Pentridge Prison's bluestone cells.
France24 hotels
Paris
Palaces on Place Vendôme and the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, small hotels on the streets below Montmartre.
Spain24 hotels
Barcelona
Modernista mansions on Passeig de Gràcia, rooftop pools above the Gothic Quarter and Port Vell.
United Kingdom24 hotels
London
From rooms above a Spitalfields pub to suites in the former US Embassy on Grosvenor Square.
United States24 hotels
New York
From a Beaux-Arts ferry terminal on Manhattan's southern tip to a 1901 Williamsburg factory.
Eight to start with
One from each city
Tokyo · Luxury Edition · No. 01Aman TokyoKerry Hill's atrium, a washi lantern the full height of the hotel
Kyoto · Boutique Edition · No. 01SowakaA hundred-year-old sukiya house and a new annex near Yasaka Shrine
Sydney · Value Edition · No. 01Ace Hotel SydneyAce's first Australian hotel, in a Surry Hills brick building
Melbourne · Luxury Edition · No. 01The Ritz-Carlton, MelbourneAustralia's tallest hotel, with bay views from the 80th floor
Paris · Boutique Edition · No. 01Le Grand MazarinMartin Brudnizki's maximalist Marais hotel with a frescoed basement pool
Barcelona · Value Edition · No. 01Hotel BrummellA Bawa-inspired garden and plunge pool in Poble-sec
London · Luxury Edition · No. 01Claridge'sA Mayfair institution since 1856, with Art Deco interiors
New York · Boutique Edition · No. 01Crosby Street HotelKit Kemp colour and a sculpture garden among SoHo's warehouses
House rules
How we chooseEight per edition
A hotel joins a full edition only when another leaves. Each edition carries the date it last changed.
Chosen from the record
Awards, guides, press and the hotels' own information. Every hotel page lists its sources.
Nothing for sale
No hotel can buy a place or read a review before it runs. We carry no hotel advertising.
Hosted nights are labelled
When a hotel hosts a stay, its page says so, with the dates. A hosted night never buys a place.