Luxury Hotels

Luxury in Barcelona is not one thing. A modernist palace on Passeig de Gracia, a rooftop tower above the Diagonal and a beach-facing suite near the Forum all carry five stars, and they buy very different holidays. This section exists to make that difference legible before you commit to a rate.

We look at the same points on every property: the size and the quiet of the rooms, whether the spa is a genuine facility or a single treatment room, how breakfast is served, and how long it really takes to walk to a metro entrance. Where a hotel is best known for its restaurant, we say so: several of the addresses covered here appear in our guide to hotels with a Michelin-starred restaurant. Where the group matters more than the building, our review of the city's leading luxury hotel brands sets out what each one tends to deliver in Barcelona.

District choice does most of the work. Five-star addresses in the Eixample put you within walking distance of Casa Batllo, La Pedrera and the densest concentration of restaurants in the city; the trade-off is street noise on the main avenues. If the sense of occasion of a landmark building matters more to you than a new-build tower, Barcelona's most iconic properties are covered separately.

Once you have a shortlist, browse every Barcelona hotel we track to compare availability and rates for your dates, district by district. We revise these reviews as properties renovate, change hands or reposition, so a hotel that looked like a safe choice two seasons ago is not always the one we would send you to today.