All grand boulevards and intimate little restaurants, Barcelona is one of the world’s great cities, with hotels to match. These six brilliant boltholes have all the ingredients for a perfect weekend away: dreamy interiors, rooftop hideaways and, in some cases, rooms with a view. Book now, thank us later.
Borneta
Barcelona’s hippest hotel opened in 2024 and carries itself with the kind of understated assurance that comes with good things. The sleek but homely rooms are decked out in bespoke textiles and artworks by local talent. The rooftop pool has a Pilar Zeta sculpture, the basement gym has exposed brick walls, and there’s an all-round members’ club vibe to the place.
So far, so good. But the real draw here is Volta, the hotel’s superb restaurant. Start with a cocktail at the bar – perhaps an umami-heavy briny martini – and then head into the restaurant proper for chef Andrea De Benedictis’s pan-Mediterranean creations – deep-fried oysters, smoked sardines – before holing up for a digestif in the library, with its collection of books curated by a nearby bookstore. The local neighbourhood is, of course, as cool as they come.
Passeig de Picasso 26, 30, 08003 Barcelona; miirohotels.com
Margot House
Less conventional hotel, more crash pad of an obscenely well-paid architect, Margot House is a simple, intimate bed and breakfast with serious design chops. Its two communal salons are packed with art books and statement furniture, and there are gallery-worthy artworks on the wall. Breakfast comes out of a chic glass-walled kitchen and there’s a cute little honesty bar.
Some of the hotel’s nine handsomely designed rooms look out on to Barcelona’s glorious thoroughfare Passeig de Gràcia and there’s a huge family room that sleeps up to eight. That design is so central to its ethos is perhaps no surprise as it occupies the first floor of a building opposite La Manzana de la Discordia, a fabled block of architectural A-listers, including Gaudíi’s Casa Batlló.
Passeig de Gràcia 46, 08007 Barcelona; margothouse.es
Pulitzer Barcelona
Everything is on point in this design-heavy hotel just off Plaça de Catalunya. Highly regarded Spanish interior designer Lázaro Rosa-Violán is responsible for the 91 art-filled rooms, which range from the snug to the roomy. The ground-floor communal spaces include a handsome lounge and the gorgeous light-filled Greenhouse restaurant, which describes itself as a “market canteen” and does an excellent-value set lunch – swordfish skewers, pork cheeks – during the week. The real draw, though, is La Terraza, the hotel’s rooftop cocktail bar, with its programme of live music and mezcal mango sours.
Calle Bergara 8, 08002 Barcelona; hotelpulitzer.es
Yurbban Passage
Tucked down a romantic little passageway, the Yurbban Passage hotel is in a nigh-on perfect spot: turn one way out the door, you have the characterful streets of El Born; turn the other, the haughty glamour of L’Eixample. Inside, the design retains plenty of nods to the building’s industrial past as a textiles factory, but the feel is resolutely modern, with cute touches such as the shuffleboard in the lobby. As well as a charming sun-trap rooftop terrace (complete with plunge pool), there’s an attractive spa in the basement.
Carrer de Trafalgar 26, 08010 Barcelona; yurbbanpassage.com
El Palace
This place has all the old-school hotel virtues: a haut-bourgeois location, elite-level food, abundant gilt and an impeccably dressed concierge. Expect eccentrically hung paintings, trolleys of cake and just the right amount of faded glamour. There’s a sun-soaked little roof-top pool just long enough for lengths, but the real star of the show is the hotel’s sensational seafood restaurant Amar, run in collaboration with chef Rafa Zafra. From the glorious navy blue and gold room, the oysters on steel shells, everything about it is opulent in the best possible sense.
Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 668, 08010 Barcelona; hotelpalacebarcelona.com
Casa Sagnier
Located on the lovely Rambla de Catalunya, with its central promenade and bevvy of independent boutiques, Casa Sagnier sits proudly in the former home of Enric Sagnier, a prominent architect of the city’s fabled Modernisme movement. The hotel has been handsomely modernised since Sagnier’s day, but his spirit lives on in the decor of the bar and restaurant – both of which are full of his curios – and the first-floor grand suite occupies his former architectural studio. There’s a little sun trap on the roof, and rooms on the top floor have private terraces.
Rambla de Catalunya 104, 08008 Barcelona; hotelcasasagnier.com
David Annand is editorial director of Secret Trips
