B/C/J Independent

Tag · 26 pieces

Hotel Review

Every piece on the journal carrying the hotel review tag, most recent first.

24 MAY 2026 hotels

Park Hyatt Tokyo Post-Renovation Review: Is the Lost in Translation Hotel Still Tokyo's Reference?

The Park Hyatt Tokyo closed in May 2024 for the most substantial renovation in its 31-year history and reopened in phased waves through 2025 and into early 2026. After three stays across the reopened floors, including two nights in the Park Suite and one in a Park Deluxe corner, the question is whether the property still holds the position it has held since the day it opened — Tokyo's reference luxury hotel — against a generation of younger rivals that did not exist when the Park Tower was built.

By Sebastian Vance · 23 min read

14 MAY 2026 hotels

Aman Kyoto at Six: The Takagamine Forest Verdict, 2026

Aman Kyoto opened on November 1, 2019 on a 32-hectare forest site north of Kinkaku-ji. Designed by Kerry Hill Architects and completed posthumously after Hill's 2018 death, the resort is six years into operation. We ran four nights to read the property at the maturity mark.

By Naomi Kawakami · 22 min read

08 MAY 2026 hotels

Best Luxury Hotels in Tokyo 2026

Ten Tokyo luxury hotels ranked by room product, dining, service, location, and value, scored on a weighted rubric, no press trips, no affiliates, paid revenue benchmark across the Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Roppongi cluster.

By Naomi Kawakami · 22 min read

05 MAY 2026 hotels

Rosewood Hong Kong at Five — A 2026 Review

Rosewood Hong Kong opened on Victoria Dockside in March 2019 as the most ambitious urban Rosewood ever built — a 65-floor KPF tower with 413 keys, eight standalone residences, and a programmatic ambition to reframe what 'urban resort' means in a vertical city. Six years on, with Park Hyatt Hong Kong opening across the harbour later this year, we spent four nights across a Premier Harbour room and a Manor Club Suite to see whether Rosewood is still the harbour's reference hotel — and how it now lines up against the Mandarin Oriental, the Peninsula, the Upper House, Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, and the incoming Park Hyatt.

By Sebastian Vance · 25 min read

23 APR 2026 hotels

Aman Tokyo at Ten: The Otemachi Tower Verdict, 2014-2026

Aman Tokyo opened on the 33rd floor of the Otemachi Tower in December 2014 as the brand's first urban property, and it spent the better part of a decade rewriting what a city Aman could mean. Ten years in, with four stays banked in the past eighteen months and a return trip in March 2026 spanning the Deluxe room, the Garden View Suite, and four nights in the 156-square-metre Aman Suite, we deliver the longitudinal verdict — what has aged, what has slipped, what has been refreshed, and whether the property still earns the JPY 250,000 entry rate in a Tokyo market that has materially levelled up around it since Bvlgari, Janu, and a re-positioned Capella entered the conversation.

By Vincent Holloway · 28 min read

22 APR 2026 hotels

Capella Bangkok at Five: The Chao Phraya Riverside Verdict, 2026

Capella Bangkok opened in November 2020 on a Chao Phraya riverside site with 101 river-facing rooms. Five years in, with the Côte by Mauro Colagreco kitchen now at two Michelin stars, we ran four nights to test the property against the Bangkok luxury set.

By Sofia Lin · 24 min read

19 APR 2026 hotels

Bulgari Hotel London Five-Year Review: Knightsbridge's Quiet Vault

Five years after its 2012 opening — and now well past the period most luxury hotels start to wear — the Bulgari Hotel London at 171 Knightsbridge is still London's most disciplined Marriott Luxury Group address. We checked into a Deluxe King and a Bulgari Suite over three nights to see what the bombproof shell, Sette (the Scarpetta NYC import that anchors the dining floor), the 25-metre underground pool, and the deliberately unmarked front door look like in 2026.

By Ines Ferreira · 19 min read

12 APR 2026 hotels

Four Seasons Bangkok at Chao Phraya River: The 2026 Riverside Business Traveller Review

Five years after Four Seasons abandoned its Ratchadamri address for a Jean-Michel Gathy-designed riverfront campus in Charoenkrung, the property has grown into the most architecturally ambitious Four Seasons in Asia. We weigh the river suites, four restaurants (including a Cantonese Michelin star at Yu Ting Yuan and a Mauro Colagreco import at Côte), the Marina Pool, and the spa against the Mandarin Oriental, the Peninsula, Capella, Park Hyatt, and St Regis — and assess whether a hotel anchored across from Iconsiam still works for a business traveller whose meetings are in Sukhumvit or Silom.

By Sebastian Vance · 26 min read

08 APR 2026 hotels

Le Bristol Paris — A 2026 Review

Eric Frechon stepped away from Epicure's stoves in 2024 after 25 years. Arnaud Faye picked up the three stars. We spent four nights at Le Bristol assessing the new kitchen, the refreshed pool, the cats and the Oetker proposition against Ritz, George V and Crillon.

By Sébastien Laroche · 22 min read

03 APR 2026 hotels

Capella Singapore Review: The Sentosa Resort Through a Business Traveller's Lens

Capella Singapore sits on 30 acres of Sentosa rainforest, fifteen kilometres and a mental zone-change from Raffles Place. After a four-night Garden Villa stay in April 2026 — bracketed by audits at Mandarin Oriental, Fullerton Bay, and Six Senses Maxwell on the city-side — I worked out which kind of business traveller this hotel is actually for, and which kind should stay downtown.

By Sebastian Vance · 25 min read

28 MAR 2026 hotels

Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong: The Original, Sixty Years On

The Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong is the property the brand is named after — the 1963 Central tower that defined what an Asian luxury hotel could be. Sixty-three years on, after a 2024-2025 soft refurbishment and with the one-Michelin-star Cantonese Man Wah and the Maximal-Concepts-run Aubrey carrying the dining floor, we spent five nights in May 2026 across three room categories to assess whether the original still sets the standard.

By Sebastian Vance · 26 min read

22 MAR 2026 hotels

Mandarin Oriental Tokyo: A Review of the Nihonbashi Penthouse Tier

Mandarin Oriental Tokyo occupies the top nine floors of the Nihonbashi Mitsui Tower, perched between the Imperial Palace gardens and the Tokyo Skytree. This is a long-form review of the property's penthouse tier — Deluxe through Mandarin and Presidential — with current 2026 rates, dining at Sense and the Michelin-starred Signature, the 9th-floor spa, the 37F club lounge, and where the property sits against Aman Tokyo, Four Seasons Otemachi, Park Hyatt, Conrad, and the imminent Bvlgari.

By Sebastian Vance · 23 min read

12 MAR 2026 hotels

Best Luxury Hotels in London 2026

Ten London luxury hotels ranked by room product, dining, service, location, and value-comparable benchmark, scored on a weighted rubric, no press trips, no affiliates, paid stays only.

By Harriet Cole · 22 min read

06 MAR 2026 hotels

The Connaught: Mayfair's Quiet Anchor (2026 Review)

The Connaught, Maybourne's most discreet London property, finished its 2024 room and suite refresh in March 2025 and tightened its position as the operating headquarters for the discerning London business traveller. A three-Michelin-star kitchen under Hélène Darroze, the world's number one bar four years running, a Jean-Georges restaurant on Mount Street, and the only Aman Spa in the United Kingdom — all behind a Carlos Place door that even regulars sometimes walk past. We score it across rooms, food and beverage, spa, service, and value against Claridge's, the Berkeley, the Ritz London, the Four Seasons Park Lane, the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, Bulgari Knightsbridge, the Peninsula London, and Rosewood London.

By Ines Ferreira · 23 min read

28 JAN 2026 hotels

Best Luxury Hotels in New York 2026

Ten Manhattan luxury hotels ranked by room product, dining, service, location, and value, weighted and scored on the same rubric, no press trips, no affiliates, paid revenue only.

By Diego Andrade · 24 min read