The new and improved Hotel Maria Cristina, San Sebastian

86_Hotel_Maria_Cristina_San_Sebastian_Bar_Dry_San_Sebastian

Following a nine month $25MM restoration, the historic Beaux Arts Hotel Maria Cristina has reopened. The reopening, timed to coincide with the iconic hotel’s 100th anniversary this month, has been long-awaited. From what I can see in the most recent photos and renderings of the new sumptuous interiors, it was worth the wait.

Interiors were restored by HBA Design, who took special care to retain the feminine charm that has characterised the grand hotel since it opened in 1912. The public spaces reveal soaring ceilings and grey white Carrara marble floors combined with mocha and copper color velvet upholstery and rugs, silver silk curtains and a champagne color palette on the walls.

The 107 guest rooms and 29 suites are decorated in pastel tones of grey, lavender and sky blue (think Laduree macaroon colors) with gold accents. Plush tufted headboards, Art Nouveau details and white mouldings complete the grandeur. It’s all very decadent and romantic at the same time.

A suite at the hotel

As part of the restoration, two new restaurants are being introduced in the hotel: Tse Yang, a haute cuisine Chinese restaurant and Easo Restaurant featuring local Basque cuisine and river views.  Dry Sebastian (feature picture), a collaboration with Dry Martini Group,  is the new 1950s-style bar that was inspired by legendary actress Bette Davis.

If you are a Starwood Preferred Guest member, this is as good a place as any to use those points (especially in the foodie seaside town of San Sebastian which hosts more Michelin Star restaurants than any other city). Or, you can wait for two other Starwood Luxury Collection hotels completing major renovations in 2013 – Prince de Galles in Paris and The Gritti Palace in Venice.

About these ads
Comments
One Response to “The new and improved Hotel Maria Cristina, San Sebastian”
  1. This hotels is really luxury for sure it is very expensive to accommodate,in Finland most of the hotels are also elegant look,i can say it is also expensive,but this one really motivate me to travel that place it was really interesting to see the interior design of the hotels,really cool.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: