The exterior view of Whatley Manor, a luxury hotel located in the Cotswolds

Looking for a short early spring break in Europe? Look no further than these gems: Whatley Manor in Britain’s Cotswolds, the Ca’ di Dio on Venice’s waterfront, and the Westin Valencia, in a historic building in the heart of the city

Whatley Manor

The Cotswolds in England have become the most fashionable country retreat in the world. This is partly because of it’s history and natural beauty, and partly it’s location, which is just far enough from London to feel remote but not so far that you get bored driving there in your Range Rover from your home in Notting Hill.

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The cosy yet decadent lounge reception at Whatley Manor

But the Cotswolds are much more than just the patch of land between Chipping Norton and Broadway, in which the most frequently spotted wildlife has been become art collectors and beauty influencers from West London.

These hills, valleys and forested plateaux actually stretch in an arc southward for 100 miles towards that other emerging fashionable countryside zone of Somerset.

And it is towards the southern sweep of the Cotswolds arc that we find Whatley Manor. Five minute’s drive from the astonishingly lovely town of Malmesbury with its 900 year old abbey, you approach the Manor along an appropriately long driveway surrounded by gardens and fields.

A view of the stately gardens at Whatley Manor

A wooden drawbridge-style door swings open automatically to lead you into a courtyard where you are met by friendly staff unloading your luggage from your two-seater (we recommend Aston Martin or possibly a Morgan) before parking it out of sight at the side.

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This stately house is located on a ridge, and on the other side a pretty formal garden gives way to a field which in turn drops down to a river, with more fields and forests rising on the riverbank.

A bedroom suite at Whatley Manor

Views are enormously important in any countryside experience and we are continually amazed at the number of country hotels that don’t manage to provide one. But you haven’t experienced this properly until you head to the outdoor hydrotherapy pool, situated in a private spa area with its own garden on the valley side of the hotel.

While you get pummelled by water jets on a starry evening, you are treated to a view of planets, stars and the dark outlines of the hillside and valley opposite. This is a truly unique experience and it is worth the visit for this alone.

The spa area also contains a series of rooms of varying temperatures, so you can go from cool to warm to hot and back again: good for the soul, and certainly stimulating an appetite.

The understated and intimate Michelin-star Dining Room at Whatley Manor

On our first night we dined in the Michelin-starred Dining Room restaurant, an excellently crafted experience which began with cocktails and “yesterday’s bread” – an utterly delicious secret concoction – in the big, accommodating lobby bar area. This was followed by a taster in the show kitchen, chatting to the chefs while watching the brigade of fellow members putting together dinner. Then, a tasting menu in which each ingredient shone, while being enhanced by the technique and skill of the chef: a far more subtle feat than just combining ingredients and sauces. This was soft power at its best.

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That kind of food is wasted if you do it every night, and on our second day we stayed in the lobby area and had an equally superb casual meal of grilled fish, steamed vegetables and some superb English wines.

Guests are offered a tasting menu which highlights each ingredient – in this case, rhubarb – while being enhanced by the technique and skill of the chef

Our room looked out onto the beautifully tended gardens, river and woodland: a suite, with a living room and bedroom separated by a bathroom whose windowside bath probably had the best of view of all. The decor is a modern take on traditional – minimalist walls with little decoration, no chintz, no carpets, an extremely high-quality bed as benefits this hotels Swiss ownership, and a feeling of craft throughout. Too minimal? Some might prefer rugs underfoot and more art on the walls, but nobody can doubt the quality of this endeavour.

As new country house hotels have opened in the Cotswolds, so they have become increasingly hectic and crowded due to the region’s popularity. Whatley Manor feels truly grown up, sophisticated, professionally run, and offers a big and beautiful oasis of tranquillity.

whatleymanor.com

The airy lobby of the 5-star Westin Valencia Hotel

Westin Valencia

Can a city break to a vibrant southern European metropolis also be tranquil? It certainly seemed the case arriving at the Westin Valencia. The hotel is built into the stone walls of a former factory, low rise but with significant feeling, beautifully transformed with a light and airy atrium lobby area, and a stunning courtyard studded with orange trees with tables scattered throughout. Get a room facing the courtyard and you are in complete privacy and peace; our room faced outwards and had a big terrace on which you could spend long afternoons sunbathing.

‘Get a room facing the courtyard and you are in complete privacy and peace’

But that would be a shame as there is so much else to do – even within the hotel itself. The award-winning bar, high ceilinged but perfectly lit and atmospheric, is a place to try adventurous cocktails including some legendary creations made with seafood, and also some excellent more traditional drinks – we enjoyed a Negroni and champagne cocktail.

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We find breakfast is often a test of hotels’ gastronomic intentions and ability. Do they simply stick some stuff on a buffet and hope people enjoy it? In the Westin’s case, breakfast is in a big and light high-ceilinged room looking out onto the courtyard where you can eat in the warmer months.

The living room of the Westin Valencia’s Royal Suite

The buffet was vast and plentiful, as you would expect, but also extremely skilfully put together with high-quality ingredients. Freshly sliced and seasoned salmon, avocado that came with its own salad and garnishes rather than simply dumped on a plate, a huge array of bread, fruits, vegetables…

The best of American generosity and service in a beautifully restored historic building in the heart of one of Europe’s most interesting and vibrant cities? You’d better believe it.

thewestinvalencia.com

The unassuming exterior of Ca’ di Dio hotel, by the Arsenale water bus stop

Ca’ di Dio, Venice

Is there a best location in Venice? The locals and experienced visitors would certainly say so: probably halfway down the grand canal where you have a vista of the stunning palazzo facing you and easy access to all the city’s brilliance.

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But other icons are also available. Most would probably agree that your ideal place to stay needs to be on the water – it’s a little disappointing being in Venice and having a view of the street.

Ca’ di Dio contains hints of its history as a 15th-century monastery

A visitor needs both history and a view, and for us the location of the Ca’ di Dio hotel is quite astonishing. Alight from your water taxi at the Arsenale water bus stop and your Google Maps tells you are right in front of your hotel. Your eyes, however, may wish to differ.

There are no hotel signs or frontages, nothing at all except a beautiful building many hundreds of years old with odd-shaped windows, facing the water. Look a little more closely, though, and you notice a couple of discreet wooden tables outside the doorway. This is indeed Ca’ di Dio, a converted 15th century monastery.

‘A visitor needs both history and a view’

Walk in, and there is nothing remotely monastic about the style and luxury that greets you in the reception area, with its vaulted ceilings and very 21st century contemporary furniture. We were given a quick tour – the bar is in one wing and the two wings are separated by a tranquil and grassy courtyard bordered by one of the hotel’s restaurants, and our room was in the other wing, the original monastery building.

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Our suite had a perfectly round window, like a porthole, through which one could peer at the locals and tourists ambling along the waterfront, by the lagoon, with the view extending to the various churches, palaces and buildings on outlying islands.

‘The suite, despite its ancient providence, is contemporary and chic’

The changing of the view in the different lights of day, dusk and night was mesmerising, as was the way it changed from blue sky and sunshine to a typically Venetian mist one evening. The suite, despite its ancient providence, is contemporary and chic. There was a cocktail bar, a bathroom straight out of the design fair with a freestanding tub and view both sides, out across the lagoon and the back across the courtyard.

Italian breakfasts, even in luxury hotels, can be little disappointing: it’s as if the culture which is so invested in food at lunch and dinner and times in between just views ‘la colazione’ as an opportunity for some espresso, saltless white bread, a piece of fruit and boiled egg.

Horticulture in the gardens of Ca’ di Dio, where herbs and fresh produce are grown

The alternative in some modern luxury hotels is the full American spread which is not exactly local., But this was a tribute to the imagination and determination of the hotel’s chef – more on whom, later. One entire section was given to home-made cakes and pastries, made fresh every day, not just a token selection but a pastry shop worth of chocolate cakes, fruit tarts, and elaborate pastries and everything in between. Loved it.

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The restaurant VERO at Ca’ di Dio is run by Luigi Lionetti, who just won the award for Italy’s greatest chef under 30

But breakfast was just a precursor to dinner – separated of course by a day wandering around Venice. The Dio’s location is refreshing after staying in any hotel crammed in the centre of the narrow laned tourist district. Here, people wander slowly along the wide waterfront towards the Giardini; meanwhile just to one side of the hotel is the access waterway to the grand gates of the Arsenale, once the world’s biggest naval dockyard and the source of the city state’s power hundreds of years ago. You can still feel it now. But back to dinner, which was precursed by a cocktail one of the little tables discreetly placed outside on the promenade.

The restaurant, VERO, is run by Luigi Lionetti, who has just won the award for Italy’s greatest chef under 30. And this was evident in the precision and passion of his cuisine. Lionetti agreed to give us a sneak peek of his kitchen afterwards: certainly, a man on a mission, to judge not just by his creativity and control, but by his age and ambition.

A main meal at the hotel’s restaurant VERO

Ca’ di Dio is an original and hard to classify creation (it opened during the pandemic) on the Venice hotel scene. A stylish, sophisticated, boutique villa, informal and without the weight of the classic luxury hotels, but just as chic, and big enough to have two restaurants, a big courtyard and the sense of being operated by a professional group. The only problem is we think it’s going to be booked out months in advance during the summer and attractions like architecture and art biennale. Book now to avoid disappointment.

Ca’ di Dio website

Hutong, fiery food, fiery views

In which our Editor-in-Chief travels from a neo-Mongolian skyscraping culinary landmark in Hong Kong to a 17th century tithe barn in Hampshire, and points between

Arriving in Hong Kong from London in the early evening, being whisked to my hotel and being checked in in-room, the call of mild has never been more powerful. A thorough room service menu, ranging from Cantonese to club sandwich, the assurance of brisk service and a half-bottle of 2009 Sauzet Puligny-Montrachet, a view from the sofa across to Kowloon, and a four-day schedule of meetings starting with no respect to jet-lag at eight the following morning: why would you venture out of your luxury hotel room?

Because… well, just because a friend who owns a tour operator had told me the Star Ferry to Kowloon is the best introductory experience to Hong Kong, and because otherwise the city would be viewed for the first time through the rose-tinted spectacles of dinners, lunches and parties with friends.

And so with pockets jangling with change for the ferry ticket machine, and the hotel doorman’s slightly perplexed ministrations that it would be much more convenient for me to take a taxi to Kowloon, uncomprehending of the fact that the journey was the destination, I headed through the tropical rain, along a latticework of walkways, past hurrying locals and the odd sauntering tourist, and took my place on a seat by the window. The churning journey across the few hundred metres to Kowloon plunges you into a valley of sea between mountain ranges of human endeavour and show, the edifices on either side; and then you are in Kowloon, and ducking into the lobby of an office skyscraper just before the downpour starts again.

Strange for a Westerner to travel to an acclaimed restaurant in the lift of an office building, but exit on the 28th floor and this is the world of Hutong, a sort of Inner Mongolian gastronomic temple (I later learned that it is designed to mimic Ancient Peking) complete with contemporary bar and ravishing guests. I sat at a table by the floor-to-ceiling window and gazed at the jumble of skyscrapers, each bigger than the last, spreading up and across and out, of Central, Hong Kong, obscured sometimes for seconds by drifting low clouds of the storm and then switched on again as the sky cleared. I toasted the view with a half-litre of draft Veltins, one of German’s finest, most aromatic lagers served icecold and surprising at Hutong. The cuisine is a meld of northern Chinese with whatever else they wish to serve, and my beef fillet with Sichuan chillis was edgy, precise and focussed.

The following evening I was taken by a friend to his new(-ish) restaurant, The Principal, in Wan Chai, a formerly sleazy, now rapidly yuppifying, area along the seafront that mixes massage parlours and ultra-cool shops in roughly equal measure. The Principal is unusual for Hong Kong, I was told, in that its entrance is on street level, which makes it very usual for where I come from. You walk through a gleaming bar area and into a restaurant room that is pared back, minimalist contemporary chic. The menu is Australian in its imagination, and quite contemporary London in its simplicity. The signature starter of baby beet, yoghurt, black quinoa and micro herbs was a quadratic equation of flavours with a very complete resolution; saltbush tenderloin of lamb with sweetbreads, aubergine, chickpeas and Moroccan ras-el-hanout was not North African so much as mid-Indian Ocean, and perplexing and delightful. My friend also owns a wine business, so the Wine Atlas, with picks of the most interesting wines from around the world, was very compelling. This sort of laid-back glamour is the new Hong Kong style, apparently, and London could rather do with some of its own.

The Principal, a culinary highlight in Hong Kong’s cool Wan Chai area

Business finished at lunchtime on the last day in Hong Kong, a Sunday, so a friend who runs an auction house and I wandered down at teatime to the Captain’s Bar, a legendary institution in Central, the heart of town. In a part of the world where high floors and astronomical views are de rigueur for bars, it was arresting to be in a windowless space on a ground floor, an L-shape punctuated by glass tableaux of a chess game, low banquettes, and private jet set businesspeople of no fixed abode muttering deals to each other.

This is one of Asia’s most celebrated cocktail bars, but with a 12-hour flight ahead we weren’t in the mood for cocktails, instead finding solace in the metal tankards of extremely cold, perfectly headed Asahi lager. As the Germans and Belgians – and evidently the Hong Kongers – know, beer benefits from being served correctly as much as any wine appreciates its appropriate Riedel stemware. I had never had lager in a metal tankard before, but after two, we agreed that your own personalised, engraved tankard at the Captain’s Bar was an essential item for any gentleman of the world. My friend had auctioned off two of these for charity a year or two before, but sadly they are no longer available, so I left Hong Kong with a slight sense of yearning.

Frank Gehry-designed fish on the seafront at the Hotel Arts, Barcelona

I have wanted to visit the Hotel Arts in Barcelona for more than a decade, but despite a number of trips to the city, never quite managed to make it. Back in 1998, the world, or Europe in any case, had seen nothing like it: a new build skyscraper devoted to showing off artworks to its guests, more six-star than five. In a city as earthy as Barcelona, it is a strange and rather liberating feeling to be hoisted 20 floors into the sky and survey the scene from above, Asian-style. My room was a paragon of contemporary comfort: silence, a perfectly-sprung bed, a bathroom with the glass walls that are essential parts of a hotel designer’s repertoire now (affording more physical space as well as a feeling of it). And if you tire of Barcelona’s rather impressive (for a big city) public beach on the doorstep, you can view what is probably Spain’s finest overall collection of contemporary art or retire to the hotel’s own pool, stretched out just below the landmark Frank Gehry fish sculpture, which could be said to have kickstarted the whole contemporary design trend in northern Spain. The pool’s architecture is such that it reminded me rather of the Villa d’Este’s pool on Lake Como, famously floating in the lake on its own pontoon, even though the Arts’ pool is very much on dry land.

Without wishing to belittle the hotel’s art offering, which is compelling and makes a stay rather like staying in a contemporary museum, my highlight was art of a different form, in the restaurant Arola. This is food with wit, taste and just enough conception: cod esqueixada with tomato pearls, very particular patatas bravas, sea cucumbers and razor clams with kalix (which reminded me of samphire) were wonderful and not overdone. The artistry of the form of the dishes was matched by their culinary execution; here is another example of modern Catalan cuisine taking its inspiration from Ferran Adrià’s now departed El Bulli but painting with its own palette, so to speak. And one of the most refreshing factors was its informality: Arola is conceived as a modern take on a tapas bar, so the service was swift and down-to-earth, not remote and Michelenic.

Home territory this summer featured a tour of the ancient hillsides of the Cotswolds, and a delve further south. I was struck a few years back when a friend who owns some of the coolest hotels in the world told me he considered Barnsley House as his favoured retreat in the now-ultra-fashionable hillsides and wooded folds between Oxford and Gloucester. England has recently been host to a number of spectacular country hotel openings, and I went expecting a grand super-Cotswold resort, only to be greeted by a bijou little property, all higgledy rooms and hidden staircases, tastefully refreshed in a contemporary style.

Our suite was in a former stable, approached along stepping stones in its own private garden – very St Tropez and perfect for a shy rock star making an escape with the wrong person’s girlfriend, in its seclusion. Inside the palette was light and contemporary, an offset to the building’s history. It was all very refreshing, although the garden and private water area could perhaps have been more organic, more easy on the eye. For those who want country without Country Life, Barnsley House is probably a perfect weekend stop.

As traditional and cosy as Barnsley House is New Gen Chic, Woodstock’s Feathers hasn’t changed much, barring the required investment in keeping everything up to date, since I used to escape there on Sunday evenings with friends while a student at Oxford in the late 1980s. This establishment fixture can accurately claim to be the Gateway to the Cotswolds; it is also on the doorstep of my favourite stately home in the area, Blenheim Palace.

The Feathers has been nurtured lovingly into the modern era, not jolted into it: fabrics and warm and autumnal, grandfather clocks still stand, history is alive, but there is a lack of fust and fuss. There is a feeling of cosiness, enhanced by the enclosed (in the best possible way) nature of its 17th century buildings. Service is friendly and country, not town, and you get the feeling that a gin and tonic, rather than a raspberry Martini, will be the favoured drink here for a century to come – although naturally they will serve you both.

Fifty kilometres is a distance that means nothing in China (unless you’re breaching the border between Hong Kong’s Special Administrative Region and China proper). In England, it takes you to a different part of the country, as a foray to Norton Park from the Cotswolds attested. Steep rolling hills are replaced by broad downs and open plains, and Norton Park makes the most of these views and its wonderful and vast 17th century tithe barn. Here is a new-style country hotel of a different perspective; the simple, well-sourced and thoughtfully cooked country cuisine tells the tale of a country whose culinary history has been jolted out of a shameful past in just the last 10 years.

Norton Park’s new building is removed by some ancient woodland from its original manor house, where we found snug ceilings, secret passages, and a lawn leading to a duckpond and an overgrown copse; ancient meeting modern.

Darius Sanai is Editor-in-Chief of Condé Nast Contract Publishing