Conde Nast Traveler

October 2019

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  The Best Hotels in the World: 2019 Readers' Choice Awards

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  For our 32nd annual Readers’ Choice Awards survey—yes, more than three decades—a record 600,000 registered voters weighed in on their favorite hotels around the globe. Some hotel stays are utterly forgettable—decent food, standard sheets, and a middle-of-the-road location. But some, you'll remember for the rest of your life. The following list ranks the 50 best hotels in the world according to Traveler readers in this year's survey. The impressive number of 2019 results were especially exciting for us: we’re ever curious about where you go, what you loved, and who you went with. As you continue to travel, we continue to listen. Here are the hotels you loved most this year.
  
  Over the years, guests here have included Elizabeth Taylor, Wallis Simpson, and the Shah of Iran. Winston Churchill used to rent two cabanas, one to paint in and one “for naps” (and drinks, as during Prohibition spirits were served illegally here). Set in Surfside at the less-developed northern end of Miami Beach, this hacienda-style hotel has been brilliantly extended by Richard Meier, whose 12-story glass towers seem to float above the terra cotta tiles of the original 1930s Mediterranean-style pantile roofs, and interiors by Joseph Dirand. The cabanas now house part of the charming spa, where even the brushed-brass key pads on the lockers are a thing of beauty, as well as a handful of Cabana Studio bedrooms, each a pale-but-interesting essay in contrasting textures: canvas, rattan, and travertine. Of course, the restaurants are as much of an attraction: The Surf Club by superchef Thomas Keller opened its doors in summer 2018, and Le Sirenuse Miami comes from the owners of its namesake hotel in Positano. Densely planted with exotic palms, the latter evokes a cultivated jungle, a setting that is almost as memorable as Antonio Mermolia’s deft cooking, where the attention to detail extends to dyeing the ice over which they serve oysters the bluish-green of an iceberg. Try the Kumamotos, flown in daily from Washington state and dressed in a zingy citronelle emulsion.
  
  "Spectacular" was the word the Miami Herald ran in a headline for the Surf Club in November 1959. And so it is, nearly 60 years on.