Four Seasons Hotel Madrid – a bank vault turned palace

Four Seasons Hotel Madrid occupies a triangular block at Calle de Sevilla 3, two minutes from Puerta del Sol, inside a building that spent more than a century guarding other people's money before it ever welcomed a guest. Raised between 1887 and 1891 by architect José Grases Riera as the headquarters of the insurer La Equitativa, the palace later became the nerve centre of the bank Banesto and stood empty for years after Banco Santander absorbed it in 2004. Seven years of restoration stitched this building and six neighbours into Centro Canalejas, and in September 2020 the complex reopened as Four Seasons' first Spanish address: a 200-room hotel with 22 private residences and direct access to a gallery of international shops. The MICHELIN Guide gives it Two MICHELIN Keys, recognising a property where green-marble pillars, gilded capitals and a banking hall's stained glass survive alongside contemporary art, a rooftop restaurant by Dani García and the largest spa in central Madrid.

01The house

The structure was built between 1887 and 1891 by Spanish architect José Grases Riera to serve as the headquarters of La Equitativa insurance company, and was known as the Palace of La Equitativa. From 1920 to 2004, it served as the headquarters of Spanish bank Banesto, and for a time the building also housed the Casino de Madrid. After Banco Santander purchased Banesto, the bank changed headquarters in 2004, and afterwards the building stood empty and abandoned for several years.

The turning point came when OHL Desarrollos seized the enormous unused plot in 2012, an opportunity like no other in size, location and heritage for Four Seasons to take on Spain for the first time. More than 16,000 pieces were removed, catalogued and restored during the works, among them the green marble pillars with gold-plated capitals that decorate the lobby and the original stained glass window from the old bank.

02Rooms and suites

Four Seasons Hotel Madrid has 200 hotel rooms, including 39 suites, alongside two restaurants, a spa, meeting rooms, an indoor swimming pool and an expansive roof terrace. In an attempt to respect the original configuration of the seven buildings while combining them into one address, the hotel offers sixteen different types of rooms and suites, including double-height suites that are rare to find in a hotel. The top floors of the building are reserved for 22 private luxury residences, where owners share access to all hotel services.

Insider tip

Between Puerta del Sol and Barrio de las Letras; Metro Sevilla and Sol; 25 minutes from Barajas Airport.

The grandest of all is the Royal Suite, set on the first floor at the chamfered corner between Calle de Alcalá and Calle de Sevilla. It has remained virtually intact since the construction of the building in 1887 and has been restored in situ. Its 431 square metres once housed the Casino de Madrid as well as the boardroom and the office of the president of the now-defunct Banco Español de Crédito, absorbed into Banco Santander in 1994.

03Where to eat

On the seventh floor, Dani Brasserie is a rooftop restaurant where chef Dani García blends Michelin-starred technique with more casual Spanish and international dishes, enjoyed with skyline views from an outdoor terrace. The chef from Málaga, whose career has been recognised with three Michelin stars, oversees the kitchen himself, while the room was designed by Martin Brudnizki's Swedish studio in a colonial palette of greens, yellows and warming reds. The wine cellar, run by sommelier Claudia Gozalbes, holds more than 400 references spanning Spain's main designations of origin, late harvests, cavas and sherries, and the terrace itself sits on an observation deck 92 metres above the ground.

Downstairs, Isa Restaurant & Cocktail Bar serves modern Asian street food in a social dining room built around an award-winning cocktail bar, with a list of sakes, wines and signature drinks to match. It is the hotel's other restaurant, an Asian-inspired cocktail bar and restaurant recognised by the MICHELIN Guide, and its katsu sando and whole crunchy sea bass have become fixtures on the menu.

04The bar

Beneath the two-storey columned lobby that once served as the bank's main hall, El Patio does the work of a living room, serving coffee, pastries and local dishes by day and cocktails by night amid surviving marble and gilt. First-time arrivals tend to notice the dessert cart stocked with cakes by the slice and pours of Ruinart Champagne before they notice the eight-foot black KAWS sculpture standing in the lobby itself, a deliberately contemporary jolt inside the historic shell.

For something livelier, Isa's cocktail bar runs alongside its dining room with its own list of sakes and signature drinks, while Dani Brasserie keeps a wraparound marble bar on the roof for guests who want the skyline without the full tasting menu.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Spa at Four Seasons Hotel Madrid is the largest urban spa in Madrid, with more than 1,450 square metres of space spread across four floors, topped by a sky-lit swimming pool and an eighth-floor sun terrace looking over the rooftops toward the hills beyond the city. Eight treatment rooms, including a couple's suite, sit around a two-storey oval lobby lit by an oculus skylight and softened by hanging gardens of metal and glass.

A 24-hour fitness centre covers cardio and strength training with panoramic views of the capital, and the Rossano Ferretti Hairspa brings the Italian stylist's invisible-cut method to a dedicated salon on the same floors. The pool and spa areas open daily from early morning into the evening, with later hours reserved as quiet Serenity time for guests over twelve.

06The neighbourhood

Four Seasons Hotel Madrid sits right in the heart of the Spanish capital, between Puerta del Sol and the Barrio de las Letras, offering the best location for a visitor to the city. Most of Madrid's key sights lie within a twenty-minute walk, and it is a twenty-five-minute drive to Madrid-Barajas International Airport.

The hotel also forms part of Centro Canalejas, the wider complex that incorporates Galería Canalejas, a shopping gallery of more than forty outlets including Hermès, Cartier and Rolex, reached directly from the lobby without stepping onto the street.

07Making the most of a stay

The rooftop does double duty beyond dinner service: each summer «Dani's Cinema Club» turns the terrace over to open-air film nights paired with food from Dani García's kitchen, while winter brings a season of festive dining, wellness treatments and events that have made the hotel a fixture of Madrid's Christmas calendar. A late-spring wellness weekend of yoga, meditation and beauty treatments has also become a regular fixture, open to residents as well as houseguests.

Guests who want the eighth-floor pool and terrace to themselves can book a private evening session running from 9.30pm to 2am, with an optional fixed-menu dinner served under the stars. Elsewhere, close to 1,500 works of art hang through the corridors, restaurants and spa, turning a walk between rooms into something closer to a small gallery circuit.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.