The Retreat at Blue Lagoon Iceland – luxury built into lava

On Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula, where two tectonic plates pull slowly apart beneath a sea of black rock, The Retreat at Blue Lagoon Iceland sits half-sunk into the lava as though it had always been there. Basalt Architects embedded the building within a 751-year-old lava field inside the Reykjanes UNESCO Global Geopark, letting the lava formations define its spaces and dissolve the line between landscape and building. Opened in 2018, it is an award-winning resort encompassing a 60-suite hotel, a subterranean spa, Michelin-starred dining and a private lagoon fed by the same healing waters as the Blue Lagoon. The MICHELIN Guide awards the house Two MICHELIN Keys, and its restaurant Moss was the first hotel restaurant in Iceland to earn a Michelin star, back in 2023. Few hotels sit quite this literally inside their own geology.

01The house

The complex was expanded over the years to incorporate a restaurant, and in 2014 construction began on The Retreat at Blue Lagoon Iceland, four years before its doors opened. Basalt Architects led the design, with project architect Sigríður Sigþórsdóttir and project manager Hrólfur Karl Cela, working alongside Milan-based Design Group Italia, whose chief creative officer Sigurður Thorsteinsson shaped the interiors.

As excavation began, unexpected lava formations compelled the architects to revise their plans and incorporate these features as interior walls, so the finished building merges seamlessly with its surroundings. The structure is predominantly precast concrete, chosen to limit the impact of onsite construction, with warm walnut and jatoba wood set against raw lava surfaces. The result earned the hotel's interior the title of Best Resort 2019 at the AHEAD Europe awards for hospitality, experience and design.

02Rooms and suites

The 60 suites are surrounded by water in the way a moat surrounds a castle, arranged across six categories: Lava, Moss and Lagoon view junior suites, then Moss, Lagoon and Blue Lagoon suites. In October 2026 the hotel's own site quoted rates from ISK 230,000 for a Lava or Moss junior suite and from ISK 280,000 for a Lagoon view junior suite.

Insider tip

Moss dinner reservations and spa treatments should be booked ahead of arrival.

At the top sits the Blue Lagoon suite, a bi-level residence with its own private lagoon, steam room and sauna – as close as a guest can get to having the geothermal water entirely to themselves. Throughout, the material palette stays close to the ground it occupies, with silvered timber and concrete tinted dark grey to match the basaltic geology, framed by floor-to-ceiling glass.

03Where to eat

Moss, the hotel's restaurant, occupies the highest point at the Retreat, with sweeping vistas of the otherworldly landscape; its dining room is carved into the lava rock, with views across the volcanic landscape. As the first hotel restaurant in Iceland to earn a Michelin star, in 2023, Moss continues to set the standard for fine dining in the country, and has now held the award for three years running.

Its seasonal seven-course tasting menu blends Icelandic ingredients with Asian influences, under the creative direction of chef Aggi Sverrisson, who returned home after years running Texture Restaurant & Champagne Bar in London. Floor-to-ceiling windows give diners uninterrupted views across the Blue Lagoon while the menu moves through Icelandic lamb, Arctic char, langoustine and foraged herbs.

Much of the wine list is kept in a cellar carved directly into the lava rock, where the design team also fashioned a chef's table from a hulking lava stone quarried onsite. Twice a week, a handful of guests can book that table and watch the kitchen work at close range.

Beyond Moss, the resort runs two further dining rooms: Lava Restaurant, for culinary classics inside volcanic architecture, and the more informal Spa Restaurant inside the Retreat Spa itself.

04The bar and lounge

The Retreat's own stretch of water doubles as its bar. An underwater sound system plays ambient music and a swim-up bar serves champagne and wellness shots, with guests able to bathe in the private lagoon 24 hours a day – under the northern lights in winter or the midnight sun in summer.

Inside, the main communal area doubles as check-in and the setting for breakfast and afternoon tea, and the space stays wonderfully serene; a floor-to-ceiling lava stone fireplace stands at the centre of the lobby lounge.

05Spa and wellbeing

Every guest has unlimited access to the Retreat Spa, the Retreat Lagoon, the Blue Lagoon and the Blue Lagoon Ritual, along with skin-care amenities. Below ground, there is an in-water massage area, a cold well, a lava-walled steam room, a sauna and two treatment rooms, offering Silica salt rubs, hot stone massages and facials using Blue Lagoon Iceland products.

Treatments range from ISK 25,000 to ISK 45,000, with signature rituals built around Icelandic sea salt, birch extract and hand-harvested lava stones. All electricity, heating and hot water at the Retreat are powered by geothermal sources, drawn from the same system that feeds the lagoon outside.

06The neighbourhood

The Retreat stands inside the Reykjanes UNESCO Global Geopark, a peninsula that sits directly on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates diverge at about 2 cm a year – the slow force behind every black field outside its windows. It is 20 minutes from Keflavík International Airport and around 45 minutes from Reykjavík, close enough for a stopover or a stay in its own right.

The hotel sits on the edge of the Blue Lagoon in a UNESCO-protected area of Grindavík, the small fishing town that gives the bay its name. The ground here remains geologically active, a fact that shapes everything from the warmth underfoot to the steam that never stops rising off the water.

07Making the most of a stay

Moss is open Wednesday to Sunday, from 18:00 to 23:00, and access is reserved for Retreat Hotel guests and Retreat Spa day visitors, so it is worth booking a table at the same time as the room. Every guest is assigned a personal host for the stay, on hand to arrange a dinner reservation, a tour of the peninsula or simply a recommendation.

Both of the Blue Lagoon's hotels include a Northern Lights wake-up call as standard. Two nights, rather than one, give enough time to use the spa, the lagoon and a dinner at Moss without rushing any of them.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.