The Best New Hotels in Africa and the Middle East: 2024 Hot List
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It’s inevitable: Every spring when we pull together the Hot List, our annual collection of the world’s best new hotels, restaurants, and cruise ships, a staffer remarks that this latest iteration has got to be the best one ever. After a year’s worth of traveling the globe—to stay the night at a converted farmhouse in the middle of an olive grove outside Marrakech, or sail aboard a beloved cruise line’s inaugural Antarctic voyage—it’s easy to see why we get attached. But this year’s Hot List, our 28th edition, might really be the best one ever. It’s certainly our most diverse, featuring not only a hotel suite that was once Winston Churchill’s office, but also the world’s largest cruise ship and restaurants from Cape Town to Bali. We were surprised and inspired by this year’s honorees, and we know you will be too. These are the Hot List hotel winners in Africa and the Middle East for 2024.
Click here to see the entire Hot List for 2024.
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Brian Siambi/Angama AmboselihotelAngama Amboseli
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Hot List 2024Size is everything in the Amboseli National Park’s ecosystem. Some of Kenya’s few remaining super tuskers make a vast journey along an ancient migratory path below the hulking shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. It’s an environment where big ideas are not only welcome but needed—and safari outfit Angama has risen to the challenge with its third property. Within the Kimana community sanctuary, the 10-suite canvas-roofed lodge is part of an elephant corridor connecting Amboseli with protected areas in the Chyulu Hills and Tsavo West National Park. Built in partnership with the Big Life Foundation NGO, it’s the company’s first major foray into hands-on conservation. It doesn’t shy away from the realities of human-wildlife coexistence—that’s part of the story. From the Mnara, a wi-fi equipped watchtower, guests can see herds parade across swamps at sunset as lights from villages twinkle on the horizon. Elephants have inspired every element of the interior design, from pillars resembling their columnal legs to place mats mimicking their abrasive skin. Even dung has been used to craft the thermoregulating adobe walls. All tents—spaced several pachyderm strides apart—have superb views, a signature for Angama. Beyond a forest of fever trees, the sometimes snowcapped summit of Kilimanjaro can be seen through the clouds—often so close, it feels within touching distance from the bed. Lying back and watching the wild world go by is the biggest treat of all. From $1,638. —Sarah Marshall
Farasha FarmhousehotelFarasha Farmhouse
$$ | Hot List 2024Marrakech has been abuzz with the arrival of new medina and Palmeraie hotels in the past year. But it’s this farmhouse embedded in an olive grove between the Atlas and Jbilet mountains, 45 minutes from the medina, that feels most like a gear-shift in the city’s hotel scene. The vision of husband-and-wife event stylists Fred and Rosena Charmoy—who have planned some of the most talked-about parties in town over the past 20 years—it’s the kind of in-the-know desert retreat you would expect to find in Ibiza or Joshua Tree. There are no flashy signs; instead the Hamsa, or Hand of Fatima, is etched on a rock to signal you’re close by. Long pathways sprinkled with argan nuts lead the way to the dusty-pink converted farmhouse. Inside, the smooth space looks like a sleek art gallery, with shimmering tadelakt surfaces. Vintage Italian sofas join pieces by local artists and craftspeople, from shaggy carpets by Beni Rugs to Amine El Gotaibi’s giant wooly art installations and coffee-table books handed down from the city’s legendary Vreeland estate. Of the three oversized suites in the main building, the two cavernous rooftop rooms are the best for views across to the mountain peaks. In the wispy gardens, an adobe house has been turned into a stylish casita, where traditional clay contrasts with oxblood and mustard zellige tiles. The 164-foot pool has huge daybeds between plumes of olive trees, where guests sprawl before drifting into evenings fueled by hibiscus sundowners and New Age cosmic chats. From $380. —Chloe Sachdev
Jannah LamuhotelJannah Lamu
$$$ | Hot List 2024I fell for Lamu, the 14th-century former powerhouse on the maritime trade route between Africa and Asia, as a student in the late 1980s—a time of semi-ruined mansions and no electricity. The island, specifically the outlying former fishing village of Shela, is a bohemian hot spot today, and the new Jannah Lamu is buzzing with energy (and air-conditioning, still a rarity here). This is the latest hospitality project of Kenyan designer-hotelier Anna Trzebinski, who has incorporated old village buildings and outdoor spaces into one innovative “constellation hotel.” It’s easy to shed layers of stress here, lulled by the sounds of Shela: children kicking around a football, calls to prayer, village elders putting the world to rights, and donkeys drinking from stone basins at the hotel’s bougainvillea-draped entrance. Jannah—now the highest building on the skyline—features Gaudí-esque curved windows and a vertiginous staircase tower, which connects the bedrooms to the penthouse and communal roof terrace. The Swahili-chic decor is punctuated with touches of glamour, and terraces overlook the wooden dhows on the bay—three of which are at the disposal of Jannah guests. The hotel also owns a canopied and cushioned barge, for languid day trips to distant dunes and islands, morning swims through the mangrove inlets where turtles like to surface, or shopping trips to vibrant Lamu Town just along the coast. Because as everyone who lives here knows, the essence of Swahili culture is inevitably best imbibed afloat. From $220. —Catherine Fairweather
Elsa Young for Molori MashumahotelMolori Mashuma: First In
$$$ | Hot List 2024Iconic Mana Pools National Park has a reputation for many things: otherworldly scenery, a plentiful elephant population, riverfront game drives spotting majestic hippos and crocodiles, and prides of lions easily tracked to the park’s five marshy watering holes. But one thing this rugged area is decidedly not known for is its luxury options—until now. Situated 15 miles south of the Zambia border and named for the water pan it overlooks, Molori Mashuma brings the magic of a Zimbabwe safari intimately close thanks to suites perched on the edges of a watering hole in an unfenced property, where the wildlife is not only experienced on game drives—it’s also rambling through camp, day and night. Still more high-end hideaway than tented camp, the property has six permanent suites that boast viewing decks and chic interiors designed by Hesse Kleinloog Studios of Johannesburg: Think hardwood floors, stocked armoire bars, color-popped rattan light fixtures, stand-alone tubs, and outdoor showers. A central, open-air area houses the fully-stocked cocktail and coffee bar, a braai (charcoal grill) for elevated barbecue dining, a nature-engulfed swimming pool, and a wine pod where imported South African vintages are uncorked daily. But it’s the scenery that makes even these five-star comforts sometimes feel like a blip on your radar: Prepare to come within an arm’s reach of majestic elephants who reliably mill through camp almost every day to graze and seek shade. Once the adrenaline of those encounters wears off, slip into your private plunge pool or deck daybed (depending on your suite) to come back down to earth behind a pair of binoculars. From $1,765. —Shannon McMahon
North Island OkavangohotelNorth Island Okavango
$$$ | Hot List 2024Natural Selection’s intimate new “micro-camp” is proof that the best safaris happen when the wildlife comes to you. Here, elephants snuffle in the shadows of overhanging jackalberry, fig, and ebony trees; at night, hippos splutter clumsily, fish eagles squeal, and frogs belt out a lullaby chorus from the surrounding lagoon. Active wild dog dens have lured natural history filmmakers, and sightings of leopards and lions are on the rise. This daringly modern island escape in the African bush delivers the best of the Okavango Delta: top-class game viewing (by land and water), eye-widening scenery, and sunsets demanding moments of reverential silence every evening. Prioritizing privacy, four villas fan out along walkways that weave between termite mounds on either side of the dining area and marble-top honesty bar—the place is even intimate enough for an exclusive-use buyout. An outdoor gym, hot tub, and rainbow selection of fresh juices nod to an evolving trend of health-conscious safaris. Guilt-free on so many levels, the camp runs on 100% solar energy; operates in partnership with local partners, the Nakwa and the Magobagoba Youth Trust; and provides jobs and revenue as part of a private community-owned concession on the edge of the Delta’s panhandle. Guest benefits include the option to game drive off-road through grasslands and floodplains beyond dawn and dusk—but all roads lead temptingly back to the villas, where afternoons are spent dipping in plunge pools, reading on wrap-around verandas, or watching animals from the comfort of your bed.
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Andrew Montgomery/Villa MabroukahotelVilla Mabrouka
$$ | Hot List 2024Last year, designer Jasper Conran once again proved both his love of Morocco and his gifts as a hotelier. An instant classic, Villa Mabrouka is a sensitive renovation of the former Tangier love nest of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé in a magical secret garden by the Kasbah. Conran’s thoughtful follow-up to the delightful L’Hôtel Marrakech is a lesson to our age of design overkill and bells-and-whistles luxury, with nods to masters of subtle design like Jacques Grange—the creator of the “non designed” aesthetic—and YSL himself. You can almost see Saint Laurent wandering in his dressing gown through the horseshoe arches of his bedroom, now the Marrakech suite; there he goes, strolling along reconditioned black-and-white marble floors, beneath the antique chandeliers, and past salvaged Roman artifacts until he reaches the hammam. Meanwhile, Conran reminds us of the simplicity of true luxury: the morning birdsong in the hide-and-seek gardens, the hand-peeled orange slices for breakfast, the figs for snacking in sun loungers beside the kidney bean pool, the white linen sheets ironed every morning, and the eternal indigo of the Strait of Gibraltar. He visits the property regularly to tinker, like a piano tuner. Next up: a new restaurant and bar. From $490. —Stephanie Rafanelli
Seychelles Waldorf AstoriahotelWaldorf Astoria Seychelles Platte Island: First In
$$$ | Hot List 2024Imagine opening the floor-to-ceiling doors of your villa and strolling to the back of your garden to see baby hawksbill turtles emerging from the soil and waddling across the beach towards the sea. This is a reality for guests at the new Waldorf Astoria on Platte Island, a quarter-of-a-square-mile speck in the Indian Ocean. Lying 80 miles south of Mahé, the Seychelles’ biggest island, this sand cay has been transformed into a solar-powered Eden, reachable only by 14-seater aircraft for an eco-conscious blend of nature and cosseting. Platte’s naturally protected reef teems with marine life, including the largest hawksbill population in the Seychelles. To protect the turtles’ egg-laying, all 50 villas are built slightly back from the shoreline. Snorkeling sessions led by the on-site marine biologist allow for joyful face-to-face encounters with the adult turtles, baby reef sharks, and stingrays that glide in crystal-clear shallows. Personal 24-hour concierges can organize whale watching, scuba diving, in-villa treatments, and more. In this far-flung setting, the restaurants must bring their A game—and they do, including Creole-Latin fusion dishes at Maison des Epices and Moulin’s plant-focused plates sourced from the resort’s garden. The Milky Way is splashed across the sky on clear nights, adding a celestial note to a place of happy nature worship. From $2,780. —Noo Saro-Wiwa
Vincent Leroux/Raffles Al Areen Palace BahrainhotelRaffles Al Areen Palace Bahrain
$$$ | Hot List 2024Arabic script covers the ceiling of the Writers Lounge in the new Raffles Al Areen Palace Bahrain—verses by famed local poet Ahmed Mohammed Al Khalifa celebrating the tiny kingdom’s rich culture. The hotel—a collection of 78 angular villas in pristine white, with ornate mashrabiya screens, pointed archways, and private pools—is designed to celebrate the same. Artworks reference the nation’s pearl-diving and maritime history, most evocatively in a ceramic sculpture inspired by the seashells that litter Bahrain’s seabed. The adjacent Al Areen Wildlife Park and Reserve is reflected in the conservatory-like lobby, which opens into a reception hall filled with cascading plants, water fountains, and loungers in emerald green. Within the low-lying villas—available in one-, two-, and three-bedroom iterations—pale wood is offset by intricate Arabesque wall carvings, beds are covered with Stearns & Foster mattresses made exclusively for Raffles, and a bedside diffuser by Parisian brand Compoz emits scents tailored to your mood. Raffles’s dedicated team of butlers can be reached 24/7 to organize a special bath ritual or a barbecue with a private chef. If you can bear to drag yourself away from this cosseting space, all-day dining restaurant Palma specializes in Mediterranean food with a Bahraini touch, using ingredients sourced from Bahraini and Saudi producers; and Ycone Paris by celebrity chef Yazid Ichemrahen has an artful display of viennoiserie, pastries, and desserts, including the chef’s signature crème brûlée with vanilla from Madagascar and Tahiti. From $1,200. —Pearl Yan
Natelee Cocks/Siro One Za'abeel, DubaihotelSiro One Za'abeel, Dubai
$$ | Hot List 2024Encased within Dubai’s newest landmark, the debut hotel for Kerzner International’s new Siro brand is conceptualized around fitness, self-care, and recovery. While Siro One Za’abeel’s 132 rooms may look basic at first, they are anything but. Between the muted tones and clean lines, every element serves to enhance Siro’s grand mission. Mattresses are thermoregulated, the pillow menu has 11 categories, the integrated Siro app controls blackout blinds to wake guests up in natural synchronization with their circadian rhythm, and—at the recommendation of elite runners who test-drove the rooms ahead of the Dubai Marathon—ceiling fans have been installed to prevent dry throats after a night of heavy air conditioning. In-house nutritionist Heeral Shivnani can put together a macro-counted meal plan for the duration of your stay, while the neon-lit lobby-cum-community-hub serves salads, bowls, and protein shakes. In the 9,687-square-foot Fitness Lab, imposing cardio machines look squarely onto Downtown Dubai’s towering skyline; and upstairs in the Recovery Lab, everything from cryotherapy and electro-muscle stimulation to calming vibroacoustic therapy is on offer. Once you’re done with all that recharging, wind down with yoga and reformer Pilates studios, relaxation suites, and sound-healing sessions before your (scientifically designed) good night’s sleep. From $245. —Sophie Prideaux
Six Senses Southern DuneshotelSix Senses Southern Dunes
$$$ | Hot List 2024If it seems peculiar that the first hotel in Saudi Arabia’s ambitious new constellation of Red Sea stays has opened a 45-minute drive from the coast, then be clear: This 10,800-square-mile virgin territory is about much more than water. Guests can take a predawn hike across silent, sinuous dunes to a cinematic sunrise show, with the sea on the horizon. This new Six Senses is an oasis in the truest sense of the word. Surrounded by a vast expanse of desert and rock undulations, it is clustered with palms and heat-resistant plants. Here, the sonorous splash of water meets the melodious cooing of doves, drawn by the shade of petal-shaped rope awnings. Foster + Partners–designed, dune-hugging villas are desert-modernist in mood, with sweeping angular canopies providing natural shade from the harsh sun and solar-heated plunge pools for cool respite. In the sprawling spa, treatments cover everything from detox and weight management to antiaging and biohacking; but for sheer relaxation it’s hard to beat the Desert Bliss, a cranio-sacral massage performed on a bed of warm quartz sand. Zero-proof cocktails are dispensed around a palm-fringed main pool on lazy days, and at the resort’s highest point, Arabic fine-dining restaurant Al Sarab revolves around what’s local—abundant seafood and cheese—enjoyed against a fiery sunset backdrop.
The St. Regis RiyadhhotelThe St. Regis Riyadh
$$$ | Hot List 2024The only hotel inside Via Riyadh—a bijou mall of designer boutiques, hand-picked restaurants, and a cinema complex, wrapped within monumental sandstone walls at the edge of the Saudi capital’s Diplomatic Quarter—the St Regis Riyadh nods to the hotel brand’s New York heritage as well as its new Saudi home. There’s the signature Bloody Mary, made alcohol-free per the kingdom’s laws; 24/7 personalized butler service; and at Jackie restaurant, a Greek American menu inspired by the eponymous former first lady. A more local sense of detail is imbued in the gold-lined tea cups, the lustrous mother-of-pearl decorating the doors in the 2,421-square-foot Royal Suite—one of only 83 rooms and suites—and the intimate majlis-like spaces within the hotel’s sweeping hallways and lobby areas. The spa is a 13,437-square-foot enclave of contrasting textures, undulating dune-like walls, and expert hands. The 400 Journey, a 150-minute signature treatment named after Caroline Astor’s turn-of-the-century New York social set, leaves you with glistening gold-flecked skin and muscles softened by a 24-karat-gold hot stone massage, both courtesy of luxury UK beauty brand Amra. The snow shower, which one might expect to feel like sleet on a gray day, is energizing and rejuvenating. Meanwhile, upstairs at Stella Sky Lounge—located on the third floor beside a modest, heated pool—a DJ plays for a shisha-smoking crowd as night falls. From $900. —Clare Dight
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