Darling Harbour's stunning new 'W' hotel, hilltop Singapore resort among new entrants on luxury list of the best places to stay in Asia, Australia and beyond

Sky News AU

29-05-2025

A new hilltop hotel in a tropical garden with its own beach has helped reignite a tourism boom in Singapore.
It is one of a number of new hotels from Asia, Europe and Australia to make the hotel hot list this year.
Raffles Sentosa is Singapore's first all-villa hotel featuring 62 contemporary lodges, each with its own private pool.
It is an ideal place for a mini break for travellers making the arduous trip to and from Europe.
Or stay longer and settle into a resort style hotel with access to an award-winning golf club and Sentosa's Tanjong Beach.
Raffles Sentosa is set in 100,000 sq m of gardens.
It is a far cry from the original Raffles hotel built at 1 Beach Road in 1887 and named in honour of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the British statesman and the father of modern Singapore.
It is steeped with history and nostalgia.
Rudyard Kipling edited his first draft of The Jungle Book there.
Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, W. Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward, and Ernest Hemingway also stayed there.
The hotel was refurbished in 2017.
The Raffles name also spread to 18 hotels including new properties in Cairo, Istanbul, London and Bali.
Raffles London at the OWO occupies a stately Grade II Edwardian Baroque building in Whitehall once the centre of British Government and the Old War Office.
It is close to St James's Park, Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey and close to West End theatres.
Raffles Bali features 32 oceanfront villas, each with their own pool and garden.
Raffles Sentosa is noted for its culinary offerings starting with the Empire Grill, a modern Italian restaurant.
And of course there is a restaurant offering Cantonese cuisine.
Royal China is set in a dining room framed by floor-to-ceiling windows and surrounded by lush greenery.
And there is a Japanese omakase restaurant, Iyasaka by Hashida. Chef Kenjiro "Hatch" Hashida's aim is to make it the best Japanese restaurant outside his homeland.
Hilton, the global hotel colossus, already operates 8,600 hotels and resorts and is planning more. The new ones are being built in New York, Costa Rica, Athens and Osaka.
In London, The Emory at Belgravia in London seems to be top of the hit parade with the critics. It's the capital's first all-suite hotel and one of the last projects by the late Richard Rogers, one of England's most celebrated architects.
The Emory was built by the Maybourne hotel group which owns and runs the Berkeley next door as well as Claridge's and the Connaught.
In Sydney, the curvaceous W hotel at Darling Harbour reeks of glamour and sophistication and features weirdly wonderful mirror aluminium panels on the ceiling.
It is a grand edifice with 588 guestrooms and suites.
Josh and Julie Niland's boutique hotel Grand National in Paddington couldn't be more different.
It has 14 rooms and is a study in a restrained elegance.
It sits above their celebrated restaurant, Saint Peter, and is a drawcard for the culinary cognoscenti.
Their original restaurant, Saint Peter, opened around the corner in 2016, was the only Australian restaurant that made it to The World's Best Restaurant List in 2024.
The new Eve Hotel on the border of Surry Hills and Redfern in Sydney draws on the Australian landscape for its architectural inspiration.
Guests enter a calming lobby anchored by natural stone and bespoke glazed terracotta.
Architect Adam Haddow designed the hotel to wrap around a central courtyard allowing sight lines through to lush greenery.
The hotel's 102 guest rooms each offer a 'unique experience with an Australian inspired palette of either eucalyptus or red clay tones'.
Each room has a private balcony.
Haddow's groovy hotel is the centrepiece of the new Wunderlich Lane retail and hospitality precinct on Cleveland Street. TRAVELLERS' TIP
Singapore Airlines is offering competitive business class fares to Singapore.
A sampler: Sydney to Singapore return, from $6,108. Melbourne to Singapore return from $4,343. Adelaide to Singapore return from $4,448. Brisbane to Singapore return from $5,659.16.