Words by Shari Mycek, Ann Abel, Kathryn Romeyn, Katie McElveen, and Jake Emen. Each hotel restaurant is being equally honored in no particular order.
Food has always been part of a traveler’s journey. From the early inns and taverns that offered lodging and comfort food (hearty stews, bread, ale) to Europe’s 19th-century grand hotels: The Ritz Paris, Hotel Sacher (Vienna), and Savoy (London). White tablecloths, proper dress codes, and multi-course menus (rooted in French cuisine) soon followed as venues like Waldorf Astoria’s Peacock Alley became the social hubs for high society. But it was not until the 1980s and 90s that celebrity chefs began partnering with hotels, transforming their restaurants into culinary destinations (think Alain Ducasse, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Nobu Matsuhisa).
Today, more and more hotel restaurants are proudly wearing Michelin stars and showcasing innovative tasting menus, open-fire concepts, signature dishes, and creative design. Our culinary writing team was beyond eager to personally taste test their way through numerous kitchens this past year. Here are the Very Best Hotel Restaurants 2026.
YERA at FORESTIS, Brixen, Italy
Chef Roland Lamprecht takes experiential dining to a new level at YERA, which is tucked into a cave a short distance from FORESTIS’ serene Dolomites resort. Named for the Rhaetian Celtic word for harvest, YERA honors ancient traditions and foodways of the people who settled here thousands of years ago. Entering through a wooden door hidden at the end of a forested path, guests are seated around a cooking fire to watch as Chef Lamprecht uses foraged mushrooms, shoots, berries, nettles, and cresses alongside local fish and oft-used cuts of meat to create a multi-course menu of food and accompanying beverages. To add even more authenticity, diners eat with sticks or their fingers.
Macakizi, Bodrum, Turkey
The main restaurant at Bodrum’s legendary Macakizi hotel already held a Michelin star — a big deal, as the place isn’t particularly fine dining, and as it was one of the first restaurants outside Istanbul to be honored with the distinction. Its daily lunch spread is a bountiful delight, and the Sunday brunch, where the manti dumplings are said to be a terrific hangover cure, is a popular stop on the Bodrum social circuit. But it kicked everything up a big notch last year with the opening of the six-table, open-air Ayla, a love letter to the owner’s mother and to traditional Turkish gastronomy, as seen through the eyes of the hotel’s longtime chef Aret Sahakyan.
The Dolder Grand, Zurich, Switzerland
At the rather vaguely named Restaurant at the Dolder Grand, chef Heiko Nieder oversees a kitchen that’s anything but basic. He holds two Michelin stars for his deft handling of local Swiss ingredients and impressive spectrum of flavors. But this grand hotel in a castle-like building high above Zurich has a commitment to outstanding gastronomy that’s on the same level as its noteworthy art collection. Its other dining venues include a hidden omakase room, a summertime vegetarian garden restaurant, and a series of luxuriant pop-ups, such as a lobster club for which they fly in the crustaceans from Maine. It’s also home to an impressive guest chefs series, called the Epicure, that draws top culinary talent from around the world.
Capelongue, Bonnieux, France
Part of the quintessentially French Beaumier group of hotels, Capelongue is about as Provençal as Provence gets. Its Michelin-starred La Bastide, which is overseen by chef Noël Bérard, presents the perfect combination of fresh ingredients, fine techniques, and South of France-style hospitality. The tasting menus change with the seasons but include the likes of crunchy celery with black truffle from Méthamis and vegetable blanquette sauce, and lamb from Sisteron grilled with lavender honey and carrots. The hotel’s other restaurant, La Bergerie, makes excellent use of wood fires in the traditional Luberon style. It also sets out a terrific breakfast spread, including homemade jams and granola, local goat cheeses, smoked trout, and eggs made to order.
Seehotel Überfahrt, Rottach-Egern, Germany
Bavaria’s Lake Tegernsee is Germany’s answer to Lake Como, a glamorous resort destination whose Alpine waters are ringed by picturesque villages, boutiques selling luxury timepieces, and more than its share of fine-dining restaurants. The standout among them is the Restaurant Überfart at the Seehotel Überfahrt hotel. New chef Cornelier Fischer takes an unusual approach to the tasting menu, offering a small, simple taste of the ingredients that go into each plate before the plate itself. The hotel’s other dining venues, including the Italian-chef-helmed Il Barcaiolo and lakeside Fährhüttel 4, are outstanding too, as gastronomy is central to the owner’s vision of luxury leisure hotels.
AS Boutique Hotel, Ljubljana, Slovenia
People travel from around the globe to dine at Hisa Franko, the flagship of Slovenia’s most famous chef, Ana Ros. Her hyperlocal yet playful sensibility is fully on display at her urban restaurant within the AS Boutique Hotel— itself atop one of Ljubljana’s most beloved restaurants. Called Jaz by Ana Ros, it serves colorful, shareable plates — something Ros likes to call “young dining.” The word Jaz means “me” (as does the word Ana in Arabic), and the menu is a deeply personal project: her favorite Waldorf salad with apples, celeriac, celery, lovage oil, semi-dried beets, walnuts, and kefir dressing; her version of Vitello tonnato, with tuna mayo, capers, and pumpkin seeds. Downstairs, the classic Gostlina AS is still going strong.
Gran Hotel Mas d’en Bruno, Torroja del Priorat, Spain
From a food lover’s standpoint, the most interesting thing about Priorat’s Gran Hotel Mas d’en Bruno is its dedication to culinary history. Chef Josep Queralt took a deep dive into “Llibre del Sent Sovi,”the earliest surviving recipe book in Catalan, dating from 1324. This was a challenge as the book pre-dates New World ingredients like tomatoes, potatoes, and chilies. The archival dishes are elaborate — conger eel loin with a sauce of smoked fishbones and almonds, stuffed partridge with fresh herbs and mustard seeds — and they add up to some delightful gastronomic time travel. There’s also a regular menu and other restaurants serving contemporary Spanish classics like hand-sliced Iberian ham, anchovies from the Cantabric Sea, and toasted bread with tomato.
Ador Restaurant at InterContinental Sofia, Bulgaria
Is Bulgaria, Sofia, on your travel list? Maybe Ador, the signature restaurant at the InterContinental Sofia, will convince you that it should be. The restaurant offers an array of tantalizing, fresh fare focused on Bulgarian specialties such as shopska salad — think a Greek salad riff, with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, and cheese, and katuk — a creamy spread made from cheese and yogurt. Also on offer are Josper grilled proteins and mains, and plenty of Bulgarian wines. It’s dinner with a view here, too, as from the outdoor patio you’ll be gazing right at one of the city’s most famed and historic sights, the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.
THE Blvd at Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, Beverly Hills, California
The Beverly Wilshire, a Four Seasons Hotel is an icon for a reason. Not only is it loaded with old-school elegance and glam, but it also offers guests the perfect location. THE Blvd restaurant within the hotel, meanwhile, has the prime locale of all prime locales, right out front on Wilshire, where Rodeo Drive dead ends into the intersection. Whether refueling for your own shopping spree or you’re in it just for the people watching, it’s a must, and a revamped menu from executive chef Colin Bedford ensures it’s not a waste of your dining time either. Noted by moviegoers far and wide as “the Pretty Woman hotel,” there are even namesake cocktails and dishes paying homage to the movie.
Kollázs Restaurant at Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace, Budapest, Hungary
Kollázs is the showpiece restaurant of the Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest. It’s a swanky brasserie that offers a combination of traditional Hungarian fare as well as modern riffs on those flavors. So if you’ve been waiting to try a sensational bowl of goulash but weren’t sure where to go, you’re in luck. But, befitting its style and décor, the restaurant also serves a selection of classic French brasserie dishes. Can an unforgettable caviar service and glass of Champagne be the appetizer to a craveable, hearty plate of chicken paprikash and perhaps a glass of Hungarian dessert wine? It all works here. As an added bonus, you get to watch the world go by from the hotel’s fantastic Danube riverfront location.
Mistral at Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy
One word: peacock. It’s a specialty of Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni’s lake-view Michelin-starred restaurant Mistral, a reference to the classic European paintings that always included peacocks or pheasants in the garden and on feast tables. The peacock served typically in tortellini is, like every element on every pretty plate, impeccably sourced — see also foie gras that comes from an ethical producer in Spain whose free-range geese plump themselves up happily cruising around the Pata Negra forest eating acorns and almonds. The executive chef is molecular cuisine pioneer Ettore Bocchia, whose at times flashy techniques are occasionally on display via a lot of entertaining yet placid tableside cooking. Chefs clip basil leaves off a potted plant for spaghetti, and one can actually hear the sound of liquid nitrogen chilling impeccable vanilla ice cream made from scratch in a batch large enough to have seconds.
Rumari at Raffles Bali, Indonesia
Food in Bali often falls prey to cliches or fads, yet chef Gaetan Biesuz’s imagination truly runs wild at Rumari, the main restaurant at Raffles Bali, overlooking the Indian Ocean and as romantic by night as it is luminous by day. Dinners shine over the course of prix fixe menus that play off Balinese and Indonesian ingredients and flavors as well as other distinctive ones from across Southeast Asia, but often wind up unrecognizable, they’re that fresh and novel. Eighty percent of ingredients are sourced from the Indonesian archipelago, many so locally that there’s a fun toy presented during the meal that illuminates the story of several farmers and fishermen individually. This respect for local and native with worldly experience in the kitchen is a recipe for bite after bite that delivers joy, perhaps even more for the select few who snag stools at Rumari Counter for the degustation that changes every single evening.
Hibana by Koki at Capella Hanoi, Vietnam
Wagyu so exceptionally rich, flavorful, and tender you may cry is a pretty safe expectation to have when going into a dinner at Hibana by Koki, the Michelin-starred teppanyaki experience in the glamorous subterranean bowels of Vietnam’s Capella Hanoi. The Kyori beef is certified and flown in from Yaeyama, Japan, before the charming chef introduces it to his maximum 14 guests at a time and then cooks it into a procession of perfect dishes and bites with easy finesse. There are other beautiful Japanese ingredients at play, too, from sea urchin to spiny lobster and abalone, and each is impeccably composed into a meal that stays with you long after it wraps, perhaps with truffle ice cream and marinated strawberry and a copy of the menu signed by the chefs.
The Chalet at Fairmont Château Whistler, Canada
There’s a time and a place for fondue, and the time is absolutely a snow globe-worthy winter wonderland, while the place is The Chalet, plopped into the midst of that thick blanket of white at Fairmont Château Whistler. With plenty of glass to enjoy the cozy environs, there’s nothing better than a full fondue experience, starting with the perfect cup of French onion soup with duck fat crouton and continuing into a cheesy cauldron of Emmenthal, Gruyère, and white wine to which one can (and should) add winter truffle or British Columbia mushrooms. Other àpres classics are on offer, too, like Chinoise, rosti topped with beef stroganoff, and artisan sausage. Sweet Canadian kindness and service is the cherry on top of the chocolate fondue.
Feature image, courtesy of Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni
