2025 EP Club Recommended Hotels: Curated Luxury Stays

The Sun Rose West Hollywood sits at 8430 Sunset Blvd, where Montage International's California modernism meets the Sunset Strip's film and music heritage. With 149 rooms earning Michelin 2 Keys (2024) and a Condé Nast Best Hotels ranking of #11 (2025), the hotel anchors Wolfgang Puck's return to the boulevard that made his reputation. It is as much a cultural venue as a place to sleep.

Set in a private cove between Tulum and Playa del Carmen, Conrad Tulum Riviera Maya positions itself at the more structured, amenity-heavy end of the Riviera Maya luxury market. With 349 beachfront rooms, 11 restaurants and bars, five pools, a Star Wine List recognition for 2026, it trades boutique intimacy for breadth of programming and direct Caribbean access.

On West 57th Street, directly opposite Carnegie Hall and a short walk from Central Park, Park Hyatt New York positions itself at the intersection of Midtown culture and luxury hospitality. The 210-room property holds a 97-point La Liste Top Hotels rating (2026) and a Pearl Recommended designation (2025), with 350 MoMA-commissioned artworks running throughout its spaces and a 25th-floor spa and saltwater pool that few Midtown competitors match.

The Carlyle has anchored the Upper East Side's hotel hierarchy since 1930, carrying a reputation built across nine decades of discreet service, Art Deco interiors, a cabaret programme that remains one of New York's most consistent cultural offerings. Ranked #64 on the World's 50 Best Hotels list (2025) and awarded two Michelin Keys (2024), it sits at the intersection of residential comfort and institutional prestige, with 190 rooms starting at $1,600 per night.

Montage Healdsburg places Sonoma luxury in a contemporary California register: low-slung glass, bungalow-style rooms, vineyard views, a 258-acre setting north of Healdsburg Plaza. The hotel’s Michelin 2 Keys, La Liste 98-point score, Star Wine List recognition, Pearl Recommended status put it in the serious wine-country resort tier, with design, spa scale, wine access doing the heavy lifting.

Firmdale's Midtown foothold on West 56th Street brings the group's signature design intelligence to a neighbourhood already dense with American luxury. Eighty-six rooms, a 130-seat private cinema, afternoon tea service, Kit Kemp's characteristically bold interiors earn the Whitby a Michelin 3 Keys (2024) and Pearl Recommended status at around $1,600 per night, placing it firmly among New York's design-led independents.

Opened in 2020 in Otemachi's high-rise financial district, the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi occupies the upper floors of a 39-story tower with direct views over the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace and, on clear days, Mount Fuji. With 190 rooms, Michelin 3 Keys recognition (2024), and a cluster of French, Italian, cocktail venues, it sits at the larger, more view-forward end of Tokyo's luxury hotel market.

A 2025 Pearl Recommended property set in the agricultural heartland of the Bolgheri wine corridor, Relais Sant'Elena offers an intimate alternative to the grand-scale Tuscan resort format. The property sits close to the cypress-lined Viale dei Cipressi and within reach of the Sassicaia and Ornellaia estates, placing guests in one of Tuscany's most concentrated premium wine territories without the infrastructure of a larger hotel.

Post Ranch Inn sits 1,200 feet above the Pacific on Highway 1, with 39 rooms designed by architect Mickey Muennig to disappear into the Santa Lucia Mountains. Sierra Mar restaurant holds a Michelin Guide selection and a Wine Spectator Grand Award-winning list of more than 3,200 selections. Forbes Travel Guide rates the property Four Stars; La Liste placed it at 96 points in its 2026 Top Hotels ranking.

Four Seasons Resort Hualalai is the North Kona Coast resort for travelers who want Hawaii Island's black-lava terrain, oceanfront bungalows, serious golf, a dining program in one controlled resort setting. Its low-rise design, 249-room scale, La Liste 98-point hotel score, long-running luxury recognition place it in Kailua Kona's high-end resort tier rather than the island's more conventional beach-hotel category.

Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star and La Liste Top Hotels (95 points, 2026), The Broadmoor occupies 5,000 acres at the foot of the Rockies in Colorado Springs. With 784 rooms, multiple restaurants and bars spanning a 19th-century English gastropub to the refined Summit, wilderness outposts extending another 2,000 acres, it operates at a scale that few American resort properties attempt.

Two decades after opening as the Strip's first non-themed resort, Wynn Las Vegas remains the standard-bearer for restrained opulence on Las Vegas Boulevard. Rated 98 points by La Liste (2026), Forbes 4-Star (2025), and Pearl Recommended (2025), the roughly 4,700-key property, encompassing the original tower and the Encore, draws regulars who return for consistency as much as spectacle.

Conrad Los Angeles sits inside The Grand LA development on Grand Avenue, flanked by Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall and The Broad museum. La Liste awarded the property 92 points in 2026 and it holds a 2025 Pearl Recommended designation. Its 305 rooms, tenth-floor restaurant San Laurel, biohacking-equipped spa, suite terraces with 180-degree downtown views make it the cultural district's most critically recognized address.

Azulik sits at kilometre five of the Tulum Hotel Zone, where the jungle meets the Caribbean in a property built almost entirely from raw wood, rope, natural materials. Named Mexico's Most Romantic Resort at the 2025 World Travel Awards and recognised by Pearl, it occupies a distinct position in Tulum's design-led accommodation tier. The address suits travellers who want the Yucatán coast without the all-inclusive formula.

A ghost town turned all-inclusive resort in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, Dunton Hot Springs holds Two MICHELIN Keys (2025) and operates as one of the American West's most architecturally committed wilderness retreats. Original 1800s log cabins, a natural hot springs bathhouse, a setting above 8,800 feet place it in a narrow tier of properties where physical remoteness is the design itself.

Operating since 1923 on 220 acres at the foot of the Topatopa Mountains, Ojai Valley Inn holds La Liste's Top Hotels recognition (93 points, 2026) and a Pearl Recommended Hotel designation (2025). The Spanish Colonial resort sits 90 minutes northwest of Los Angeles and runs five dining outlets, a 31,000-square-foot spa, a George C. Thomas-designed golf course that has hosted seven Senior PGA Tour events.

On a private kilometre of Ha My Beach, 30 kilometres south of Da Nang, Four Seasons Resort The Nam Hai anchors itself to Vietnam's central coast with 100 villas drawn from the nha vuon garden-home tradition. Three tiered infinity pools, a Japanese omakase counter, proximity to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites position it as the region's most contextually grounded luxury address. La Liste rated it 94 points in 2026.

A design-led mountain retreat at 1,800 metres above Bressanone in South Tyrol, Forestis holds Michelin 2 Keys (2024) and 92 points on La Liste’s 2026 Top Hotels list. Stone, glass, timber architecture defers entirely to the surrounding Dolomite landscape, with 62 rooms featuring picture windows, a forest-sourced spa programme, a slow-food restaurant. Rates from $876 per night.

Aman Tokyo places resort-scale calm inside Otemachi’s corporate core, using Kerry Hill’s Japanese residential language, 84 rooms, high-floor views to redraw the idea of a city hotel. Its credentials are unusually current: World’s 50 Best Hotels #25 in 2025, Michelin 2 Keys in 2024, Tatler Asia’s 2025 Best City Hotel badge, La Liste Top Hotels 2026 at 93.5 points, Pearl Recommended Hotel status.

Harbor House sits on California's Mendocino Coast at the junction of redwood forest and Pacific bluff, holding a Michelin 1 Key (2024) and Pearl Recommended status. The property operates as a full-immersion destination: rooms, a celebrated dining program, a wine focus that draws serious collectors to a stretch of Highway 1 most visitors pass without stopping. It is one of the few places on the American West Coast where remoteness is the entire premise.

Occupying the upper floors of Nihonbashi Mitsui Tower from the 30th floor upward, Mandarin Oriental Tokyo earned a Michelin 1 Key in 2024 and a La Liste Top Hotels score of 94.5 points in 2026. The property holds 179 rooms and suites, a sky-level spa across floors 36 and above, a dining floor that spans Cantonese, molecular, Japanese counter formats. Direct subway access via Mitsukoshi-mae Station places the whole city within reach.

The only all-suite hotel in Lower Manhattan, Conrad New York Downtown holds a Pearl Recommended designation for 2025 and pairs 430-square-foot-minimum suites with a 2,000-piece contemporary art collection. Its Loopy Doopy Rooftop Bar and event spaces catered by Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group place it firmly in the upper tier of downtown New York accommodation.

Twelve architect-designed cabins spread through Montana's Blackfoot River Valley, each engineered around a different relationship with the surrounding ponderosa pines. The Green O holds a Michelin 2 Keys rating (2025) and a Pearl Recommended designation, with all-inclusive dining built around open-fire cooking and hyper-local ingredients. Adults-only, with year-round activities from dog sledding to hot-air balloon rides.