Looking over Marina Bay from the Club Lounge, Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore

In the third part of our luxury travel views column from the Spring/Summer 2023 issue, LUX’s Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai checks in at The Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore

What drew us there?

Some city hotels have spectacular views of nature – such as those in Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town. Others have dramatic city views, as in Hong Kong and Tokyo. From our suite on the 26th floor at the Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore, we had both. At night, the irregular oval of Marina Bay lit up before us, the spires and curves of its buildings encircling the bay, while the Apple and Louis Vuitton buildings floated on the water amid the ferries. Beyond the skyscrapers was the oil-tanker traffic on the Singapore Strait. We had the nature of an equatorial peninsula and one of the world’s most dynamic financial centres, all in one view.

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The refined living room of the Ritz Suite

How was the stay?

Stroll through the Ritz-Carlton lobby and you are in the centrepiece luxury hotel of a self-confident city. Ceilings are high, artworks are dramatic and well curated, and the energy levels suggest this is the place to be, in the place to be.

A perfect way to experience the hotel’s vista is from the Club Lounge on the 32nd floor. Here, we watched the sky turn orange, purple and blue (a mix of haze and effects from the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia), while drinking Rothschild champagne. The lounge has alcoves and a private room and feels very grown up.

Singapore has become a city that celebrates fine drinking as much as it does fine dining, as we saw later, downstairs in the Republic bar. The bar, voted one of the best in Asia, is 1960s themed. Decor is suitably period, and bottles of spirits and liqueurs from the era are available for drinking or mixing. You can order a Singapore sling, but that is considered a little touristic, and we weren’t brave enough to try a shot of Ramazzotti liqueur from 1960, but the stylish bartender mixed us two excellent dirty martinis. They say Singapore has taken some of the creative zing from Hong Kong. At the Republic, at least, that seemed true.

For a different experience and view, head to the hotel pool. Set in a tropical grove just below the entrance, it is sheltered from the rest of the city – a huge outdoor pool with a restful vibe.

Read more: Royal Riviera, Côte d’Azur Review

Our room was as peaceful as the bar is lively. A Club Deluxe suite, its large windows offer an ever-changing vista of the city and the Marina Bay. Decor is gentle: light pine and muted pastels, eminently suitable for a hotel that is both a high-powered business centre and a resort, which is a great strength in a hotel.

1960s cool at the Republic bar

Anything else?

The hotel is a stroll to both Marina Bay Sands – one of Asia’s most extensive luxury malls – and the hawker food markets in the other direction.

Find out more: ritzcarlton.com

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

The leafy terrace at Mandarin Oriental Ritz in Madrid

In the first part of our luxury travel views column from the Spring 2022 issue, LUX’s Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai checks in at the Mandarin Oriental Ritz in Madrid

“A little bit more, Sir?” A bartender is holding up a bottle of artisanal gin, having already emptied what seemed like a half-gallon of it into a bowl-shaped glass, filled with ice, slices of limon (a kind of lemon-lime cross) and juniper berries. I look up at the trees, the expanse of the square behind them, the outline of the grand Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum beyond, and the moon above, and think: yes, why not. I have arrived.

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If the arrival is a key part of any hotel experience, the post-arrival at the Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid, was pretty important, too. I had left my bags to be taken to my room as I wanted to catch the last embers of daylight from the bar’s terrace, which sits above the garden restaurant, itself almost contiguous with the trees of Retiro Park. You are in the centre of one of Europe’s most vibrant and dusty metropolises, but surrounded by nature (and, in my case, soon immersed in a very good small-producer gin).

The hotel’s royal suite

Neither of Europe’s other two grand Ritz hotels, in London or Paris (the three were born siblings, created by César Ritz to redefine the grandeur of hotels at the start of the 20th century, but are now owned and operated separately), offer such an outdoor experience, or indeed such a refreshing one. I am not speaking of the gin here, but of the decor: Mandarin Oriental’s magic wand over the previously grandiose but fusty Ritz Madrid has created lavishness with a certain elegance and contemporary class.

It’s a perennial question: what to do with a grande dame hotel – in this case, one of the grande dame hotels – to bring it into line with what a new generation of traveller expects, while not destroying its soul. I have seen hotels with decorative ceilings ripped out, with hip bar designers imposing darkness where there was once light, and with questionable contemporary art replacing dusty but meticulous classics.

The hotel’s Belle Époque façade

Fortunately the Ritz does not fall into these traps. Our Mandarin suite combined fresh but classic colours – pale walls, pale gold furnishings – with hints of MO style, such as black lacquer detailing. The service was up to date, effortless and effective without being stiff: just the right balance to cater for a wide variety of traveller.

Read more: Chef Ángel León: Ocean Sustainability Supremo

And the food in the Jardin (Garden) restaurant was also spot on: kimchi chicken skewer, Thai sea bass ceviche, grilled sole with artichokes. You can delve into the paella menu, as many others were doing. The hotel may claim it has updated its Belle Époque origins to work in the luxury travel world 110 years after it opened (I don’t know, I didn’t check, but it’s the kind of thing a hotel would say) and in this case, they would be absolutely right.

Find out more: mandarinoriental.com

This article appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX