Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid – a king's hotel, remade

Built at royal decree and opened on 2 October 1910 by King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenia, the Hotel Ritz Madrid existed to prove that the Spanish capital could finally match Paris and London for grand hospitality. Returning from a European tour, the young king realised Madrid lacked a hotel with enough pomp for visiting royalty, and his own forthcoming marriage gave the project added urgency. He convinced aristocratic friends to invest, brought in the architect of the Paris Ritz and installed César Ritz himself to oversee standards of elegance and service. More than a century on, following a renovation completed in 2021, the hotel reopened as Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid, its Belle Époque façade protected as a national monument, its 153 rooms and 53 suites reworked by Paris designers Gilles & Boissier. The MICHELIN Guide now gives the house Three MICHELIN Keys, with Deessa, chef Quique Dacosta's dining room, holding two stars and Palm Court a MICHELIN Plate.

01The house

Alfonso XIII did not simply bless this hotel, he engineered it. Returning from his travels across Europe, the king realised that the Spanish Court lacked a hotel with enough pomp for European royalty and other illustrious visitors, and his idea was for Madrid to have something to equal the Ritz hotels of London and Paris. His own marriage to Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg gave the project a timely excuse, and the king contributed part of the capital himself, alongside other members of Madrid society, instructing that the building be designed and built under the personal supervision of César Ritz. The architect was Charles Mewès, who had designed the Paris Ritz, working with Spanish architect Luis de Landecho; the result became one of the first buildings in Madrid to use reinforced concrete in its construction, with carpets woven to order at Spain's Royal Tapestry Factory and linens commissioned from Ireland.

The new hotel was Spain's first steel-framed building, and it featured electric lighting, elevators and plentiful bathrooms, along with a telephone on each floor for guest use — a novelty at the time. It pioneered twenty-four-hour room service and built a glass-domed winter garden that was, for its era, a marvel of engineering; the dome was damaged during the Civil War, when the hotel remained open as a military hospital, and was closed through the 1940s. Eighty years after opening, Mandarin Oriental undertook the largest renovation in the building's history, with Spanish architect Rafael de La-Hoz and French designers Gilles & Boissier restoring the crystal ceiling of the Palm Court and reopening the hotel in 2021 under its present name, while the façade itself remains a protected national monument.

02Rooms and suites

Guests can choose from 153 residential-style rooms, including 53 suites, exquisitely decorated by Parisian designers Gilles & Boissier, ranging from rooms over the hotel's courtyard to suites with views across the Prado Museum and Plaza de la Lealtad. The hotel's most exclusive address is the 190m² Royal Suite, with private balconies overlooking the Prado Museum and the square, set in the original rooms designed by César Ritz that have hosted celebrities and royals for over a century.

Insider tip

Deessa closes seasonally; spa and pool keep fixed daytime hours published by the hotel.

The decorative language is deliberately double-edged: a simple carved-wood bed with spiral posts and a Córdoba-leather headboard, its pattern inspired by the uniforms of bullfighters, sits beneath original ceiling moulding and glossy oak-parquet floors. A small table carries Solán de Cabras spring water and a miniature Ritz Madrid almond cake, an homage to Alfonso XIII's own wedding cake — past and present in every sightline, down to the last bite.

03Where to eat

The hotel's dining is overseen by Quique Dacosta, the Valencian chef with three Michelin stars at his own restaurant, Quique Dacosta Restaurante in Dénia, and now his first project in Madrid. His signature room here, Deessa, occupies the Alfonso XIII room with a terrace over the Ritz Garden and has been awarded two MICHELIN stars, built around two tasting menus, Historical and Contemporary, served at lunch and dinner, plus a weekday Chronos menu that lets guests build their own meal from the chef's repertoire.

Beyond Deessa, the hotel's dining rooms spread across the ground floor: Palm Court, the glass-domed room beneath the restored 1910 ceiling, carries a MICHELIN Plate and hosts afternoon tea and Sunday lunch; El Jardín del Ritz opens onto the garden for warmer months; and in-room dining runs around the clock for guests who prefer the Royal Suite's own balcony to any dining room at all.

04The bar

The lobby bar, with its live piano or Spanish guitar music and antique furnishings, has been a fixture of Madrid society since the hotel's opening, long before cocktail bars were fashionable elsewhere in the city. Today that tradition continues at the Champagne Bar and at Pictura, the hotel's more contemporary bar, both sitting within the same Belle Époque rooms where politicians, aristocrats and the occasional Hollywood star once took their evening drink under the Ritz's famously discreet house rules.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Beauty Concept Spa pairs bespoke face and body treatments with a short list of serious wet facilities: a Vitality Pool area, an indoor heated pool, a steam room and a circuit of sensation showers, all designed for a slower pace than the galleries two minutes' walk away. In October 2026 the spa listed its facilities open from 9am to 9pm, the pool from 6:30am to 9pm and the fitness centre around the clock, with treatments best booked ahead given the compact scale of a historic building never designed with a modern spa in mind.

06The neighbourhood

The address could hardly be more deliberate: Plaza de la Lealtad 5, in Madrid's Retiro district, directly beside the Prado Museum, within what the hotel itself calls the Art Triangle — the walkable cluster that also takes in the Thyssen-Bornemisza and Reina Sofía. The hotel sits on the grand promenade of the Paseo del Prado, next to the old stock exchange and a short walk from Retiro Park, a position that put the Ritz, by design, at the exact centre of the Madrid that Alfonso XIII wanted the world to see.

07Making the most of a stay

Deessa is reserved for guests aged 12 and over, serves lunch and dinner Wednesday to Saturday, and closes seasonally from late July into September and again in early November — worth checking before building a trip around it. The Chronos menu, the hotel's more informal tasting format, runs only on Wednesday and Thursday lunch and dinner and Friday lunch, and not at weekends. For a first stay, ask for a room on the Prado side rather than the courtyard, request a Palm Court table under the restored glass dome for breakfast, and leave an hour spare for the spa's sensation showers before the Royal Suite's balcony and the museum next door compete for the rest of the afternoon.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.