Hotels Elizabeth Taylor Has Stayed At

Café Royal’s restored public rooms from the 1860s and 1920s give this Regent Street hotel its architectural weight. Their Grade II-listed interiors became part of a new chapter in 2012, when the former café opened as a hotel following a conversion designed by David Chipperfield. Today, understated contemporary rooms and suites sit within that historic framework, with Soho, Mayfair, and St. James’s close at hand. Dining remains central to its identity: Café Royal Grill serves British cooking in a listed setting, Alex Dilling offers French tasting menus overlooking Regent Street, and Albert Adrià’s Cakes & Bubbles makes desserts and Champagne an occasion of their own.

English gardens provide the design thread at The Dorchester: their colors and motifs shape the rooms and suites, while an extensive art collection explores the British landscape tradition. Outside, Hyde Park stretches across from the hotel’s Park Lane address in Mayfair, with Bond Street’s boutiques nearby. That connection to its surroundings gives this grand London hotel a character beyond its dining credentials, which include contemporary French cuisine at the three-Michelin-starred Alain Ducasse restaurant. The Promenade supplies a more everyday rhythm, serving breakfast, afternoon tea and dinner with live music. Together, these spaces make the hotel as much a place to spend an afternoon or evening as a base for exploring London.

Edwardian rooms in gray and tangerine and Art Deco rooms in gold and caramel give The Savoy two distinct visual identities, reflecting the eras that shaped it. The theatrical connection runs deeper than the decor: the hotel was built to accommodate travelers coming to see Gilbert and Sullivan at the Savoy Theatre. Today, its private approach off the Strand puts Covent Garden and the West End within a short walk, while river-facing rooms look across the Thames. Inside, floral sculptures rise above the lobby’s black-and-white marble floor, afternoon tea unfolds beneath Gallery’s glass dome with live piano, and the American Bar makes cocktails part of the hotel’s enduring social life.

Sunday brunch turns InterContinental Madrid’s marble-lined lobby into a gathering place for Madrileños and travelers, with live music and a buffet ranging from Iberian cold cuts to paella. That sociable spirit gives this 302-room hotel on Paseo de la Castellana much of its character. Opened in 1953, it carries its grand-hotel style through generous public spaces and the Art Deco–inspired Bar 49, where sofas invite a pause over Spanish wine or a cocktail. El Jardín restaurant, enclosed by glass walls and a glass ceiling, serves Spanish and international cooking; its seasonal garden terrace adds an outdoor setting for tapas. The result is a hotel with reasons to linger between outings into Madrid.

Palm Court’s crystal canopy sets the tone at Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid, a Belle Époque palace where the dining rooms are as much a draw as the address. Beneath it, the all-day restaurant serves contemporary interpretations of Ritz classics under chef Quique Dacosta’s direction. His two-Michelin-starred Deessa occupies the Alfonso XIII room, with a terrace overlooking the Ritz Garden. The hotel sits between the Prado Museum and Retiro Park, placing art and open space close at hand. Upstairs, accommodations range from courtyard-facing rooms to suites overlooking the Prado and Plaza de la Lealtad, with marble bathrooms and a classic approach to interiors that carries the palace’s character into the private spaces.

The Pierre’s Rotunda makes a theatrical centerpiece: Edward Melcarth’s hand-painted trompe l’oeil murals, added in 1967, sit beneath a ceiling depicting bright blue sky. That appetite for grand rooms defines this Fifth Avenue hotel, which opened in 1930 directly across from Central Park. Its French Classical architecture gives it a palatial character, while Two E Bar & Lounge offers a more residential setting. Originally the gentleman’s library, the space was redesigned by Alexandra Champalimaud to evoke an Upper East Side home and now hosts live jazz. At Perrine, French-American dishes share the menu with Indian cuisine—a fitting expression of a New York institution that is also Taj’s North American flagship.

Afternoon tea beneath The Palm Court’s soaring stained-glass dome gives The Plaza Hotel its clearest expression: formal, theatrical, and deeply attached to New York tradition. Architect Thierry Despont’s renovation drew on nearby Central Park, bringing ceiling-high palms, trellis details, and cane-accented furnishings into a room that has been part of the hotel since 1907. Outside, Fifth Avenue meets Central Park South; inside, restored reception rooms and elaborate guest-room finishes sustain the sense of occasion. The 282 rooms and suites include guest rooms with sitting areas, mosaic bathroom floors, and gold-plated Sherle Wagner fixtures, while the Legacy Suites introduce commissioned art and a more contemporary residential style. It’s a hotel whose public spaces deserve as much attention as its bedrooms.

Maxfield Parrish’s Old King Cole mural has presided over drinks at The St. Regis New York since 1932, giving its namesake bar a place in the hotel’s story as memorable as its Fifth Avenue address. That sense of continuity runs through this hotel founded by John Jacob Astor IV: butlers still unpack luggage and deliver morning coffee, while La Maisonette takes its design cues from the original 1910s breakfast room. Guest rooms bring jewel-toned textiles, polished brass and marble into the residential interiors. At Fifth Avenue and 55th Street, near MoMA and Central Park, the hotel makes a distinctive base for Manhattan, with afternoon tea and a Red Snapper at the King Cole Bar providing reasons to linger indoors.

The 1893 World’s Fair clock is back at the center of the Waldorf Astoria New York’s lobby, a fitting anchor for a hotel whose recent restoration makes its architectural heritage central to the stay. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon restored its exterior and interior spaces, preserving the scale of the Art Deco architecture. Upstairs are 375 redesigned rooms and suites; the King Room includes a seating area, writing desk, and deep soaking tub. Downstairs, Peacock Alley returns alongside Lex Yard, chef Michael Anthony’s brasserie. The Park Avenue address places guests in Midtown, near Grand Central Terminal, Rockefeller Center, and Fifth Avenue’s shops.

Seventeenth-century furniture and artworks collected by hotelier Emile Wolf still shape Hotel Lancaster’s character today. Housed in an 1889 private mansion on rue de Berri, steps from the Champs-Élysées, the hotel retains the residential spirit of the house Wolf converted in 1925. Antiques sit alongside contemporary pieces by Studio Jean Philippe Nuel, with individually decorated rooms extending that eclectic approach upstairs. Downstairs, Monsieur Lancaster serves neo-bistro cooking built around ingredients from small local producers, with dishes designed for sharing. CopperBay brings its cocktail-making expertise to the bar. Together, these spaces give the Lancaster a character rooted as much in the pleasures of a Parisian household as in its century of hotelkeeping.

Le Relais Plaza’s Art Deco dining room takes its cues from the first-class restaurant aboard the ocean liner SS Normandie—a telling detail at a hotel with such a strong sense of occasion. Opened in 1936, the brasserie remains part of Hôtel Plaza Athénée’s character on avenue Montaigne, where fashion shapes the surroundings and the hotel itself. Christian Dior staged shows and photo shoots here; today, the connection continues through the Dior Spa. Red geraniums mark the façade, while the vine-covered courtyard offers another distinctive setting for a meal. Between the avenue-side terrace, afternoon tea in La Galerie and suites with Eiffel Tower views, the hotel gives guests several ways to settle into this corner of Paris.

Versailles provides the architectural cue for Le Meurice’s Alain Ducasse restaurant, where Philippe Starck reinterpreted the château’s Salon de la Paix. That interplay of classical grandeur and artistic invention gives this Paris hotel its character: Starck also designed Le Dalí, drawing on the surrealist’s playful imagination. Facing the Tuileries Garden on rue de Rivoli, with the Louvre a five-minute walk away, Le Meurice puts art within easy reach both indoors and out. Food is an equally compelling reason to linger, from the two-Michelin-starred restaurant to Cédric Grolet’s pastries sculpted to resemble fruit. In the evening, Bar 228 offers deep leather armchairs and live jazz—a more intimate setting within the hotel’s ornate world.