tl;dr – The first half of the list dropped on Monday, and the top 50 will be released on October 30, 2025.
This week, the World’s 50 Best – publishers of various lists, including the World’s 50 Best Restaurants – released the first half of its Best Hotels list.
No idea as to what the criteria are for this list – I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a Conde-Nast-Let’s-Name-Charleston-The-Best-City-In-America-Yet-Again-While-We-Count-Those-Tourism-Bureau-Dollars type of thing, but honestly, that matters little. The point of these lists is to get folks talking, so let’s do just that.
Some items I found interesting:
Three chains feature at least four properties in the bottom 50. They are:
Aman
(I spent a good deal of time chatting about Aman this week) with a whopping seven properties. I’m curious how many more Aman’s will show up in 1-50:
- No.100 Amanbagh
- No.98 Amangiri
- No.97 Amangalla
- No.79 Aman Venice
- No.74 Aman Kyoto
- No.61 Aman New York
- No.51 Aman Nai Lert
Four Seasons:
- No.86 Four Seasons Hong Kong
- No.66 Four Seasons Madrid
- No.58 Four Seasons at The Surf Club
- No.55 Four Seasons Tamarindo
…and Belmond:
- No.87 Palacio Nazarenas
- No.83 Splendido – Belmond
- No.76 Hotel das Cataratas
- No.73 Mount Nelson
- No.72 Hotel Cipriani
It was interesting to see both of Oetker Collections ‘Edens’ on the list.
A few independent properties that are super enticing to me are:
- No.56 Nihi (Sumba)
- No.88 Huka Lodge (New Zealand)
- No.82 Casa Maria Luigia (Modena, Italy) – A hotel from Italian Chef of World’s former #1 restaurant, Osteria Francescana.
- No.94 Le Sirenuse (Positano, Italy) – Mostly because it’s ‘classic.’
Lastly, one property that I’ve stayed at, which I (don’t @ me) find to be somewhat overrated, is the No.59 Park Hyatt Kyoto. I’ll have a review of my stay up before the month is out, but in short, I just found it to be a victim of hype.
It’s OK, really.
What’s your take on the list?
