All the MICHELIN Keys in Toronto

Four Seasons Hotel Toronto at Yorkville

The Four Seasons brand is headquartered in Toronto, so it stands to reason that its Yorkville franchise should be something special. This gleaming glass tower is set in an ideal location, surrounded by many of the best restaurants and shops in this cosmopolitan city. It’s also home to some first-rate French cooking at Café Boulud, as well as a stunning spa and wellness center. Rooms and suites are sunny and quietly stylish, and their substantial luxuries are subtle and tasteful, in classic Four Seasons style. Its real strength, however, is probably its service — as the flagship, it sets the tone for the entire brand.

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The Hazelton Hotel Toronto

Possibly the most luxe of Toronto’s collection of luxury boutiques, the Hazelton is a sign of the times: both high-design, with interiors by the ubiquitous Canadian firm Yabu Pushelberg, and unashamedly high-end, with suites averaging six hundred square feet and outfitted with all the latest luxury trimmings, from iPod docking stations to heated bathroom floors and flush mirror-mounted television screens. It’s meant to be a modern grand hotel, a contemporary version of what places like the Savoy in London or the Waldorf-Astoria in New York must have once been. And with a little luck that’s exactly what it’ll be.

The private screening room does a brisk business come film-festival season, and the hotel’s spa and health club, complete with indoor pool, is a big draw year-round. The same can be said of the One restaurant, and the bar is buzzing as a modern hotel bar must be — weather permitting, the scene spills out onto the street-level patio. Add a Yorkville location that could hardly be hipper or more high-profile, and you’ve got the formula for an instant classic, a hotel that’s at once cool enough for your generation and swanky enough for your parents’.

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1 Hotel Toronto

The same 1 Hotels group responsible for eco-friendly, high-design luxury boutique offerings in New York and Miami have arrived in the upscale neighborhood of King West Village. 1 Hotel Toronto features cutting-edge sustainability measures, ultra-stylish interiors, and a handful of popular restaurants and bars, from the farm-to-table 1 Kitchen to the self-explanatory Harriet’s Rooftop bar. The rooms are surprisingly sunny, and their crisp contemporary design is warmed by plenty of organic textures and living houseplants. Like its sister hotels it’s proof that in boutique hospitality, virtue and pleasure don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

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Ace Hotel Toronto

Ace’s first hotel in Canada is set in Toronto’s Garment District, close to the downtown core and innumerable local attractions. It’s a new build, but one with plenty of vintage inspiration, designed by Shim-Sutcliffe Architects and Atelier Ace. The curvaceous brick, concrete, and wooden forms feel retro-futuristic, and the lobby’s floor, if you look carefully, seems to hover in the air, suspended from the ceiling’s concrete arches by judiciously placed metal rods.

The rooms are a touch warmer and more organic, combining unpretentious bare wooden surfaces and vintage-inspired furniture with a bit of raw concrete and metal. It’s unique, but still identifiably Ace, and functionally, the rooms are true to the brand’s modus operandi: comfortable, but efficient, and anything but ostentatious.

Meanwhile the public spaces are not just photogenic but thoroughly inviting. The lobby’s bar serves craft cocktails, wine, beer, and light fare, and is hospitable to anything from a spot of work to some light revelry. For a proper celebration there’s Evangeline, the 14th-floor bar with its panoramic views of the city. And the hotel’s restaurant, Alder, where chef Patrick Kriss presides over the wood-fired grill.

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Bisha Hotel Toronto

Tucked between the Fashion District and Old Toronto, the Bisha Hotel is a lively option in one of North America’s most cosmopolitan cities. Each of the hotel’s 96 rooms and suites is thoughtfully designed by either Studio Munge — the renowned Toronto-based firm known for its opulent interior designs — or Kravitz Design, brainchild of Grammy-winning artist Lenny Kravtiz and notable for its elegant interiors with a rock-and-roll edge. Four distinct bars and restaurants range from French Made, a casual take on the Parisian café experience, to KŌST, which offers flavours from the California coastline and the Baja Peninsula, and entices guests to dine at the “top of the world” on the hotel’s 44th floor.

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Park Hyatt Toronto

Guest rooms range from large to enormous, with added comforts like feather beds and far-ranging views underlining the Park Hyatt’s dominant position. All rooms feature complimentary high-speed internet access, and the suites very quickly venture into presidential territory, with loft bedrooms or marble-floored foyers, and commanding views of the skyline.

The Stillwater spa aims to keep guests in a state of constant relaxation, and the restaurants are none too shabby either – Annona serves classic international cuisine, and the more casual option is none other than the famous Morton’s steakhouse. There’s also a rooftop bar, the only one of its kind in Toronto, serving drinks on the terrace or in front of the fireplace.

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Shangri-La Hotel, Toronto

Toronto is a surprisingly global city, and as such it’s no surprise that it counts a Shangri-La among its best hotels. It’s chock full of identifiably Asian design elements, to begin with, from towering glass panes and carved wooden screens to palatial guest rooms and cascading waterfalls. Not to mention that suites have names like Zhang Huan and Moongate. There are 202 guest rooms, a quarter of which are suites; standard in-room amenities include heated floors, Nespresso machines, flat-screen TVs in the bathrooms, bath products by L’Occitane and Bulgari, iPod docks, and floor-to-ceiling windows that (thankfully) actually open and close. The look is sleek and minimal, with a practical purpose for everything, and, above all, these accommodations are spacious — even the most standard guest room is bigger than you’d typically expect from a suite.

More floor-to-ceiling windows afford gaping views of the city below from the sprawling, state-of-the-art fifth-floor health club and spa, complete with a 20-meter pool, yoga studio, the Miraj Hammam Spa, and a long row of treadmills that might remind you of a memorable Bill Murray scene from Lost In Translation. The Bar specializes in Prohibition-era cocktails, while Bosk is the hotel’s stylish restaurant. It’s also Asian-inspired, as you might well have suspected, with carved screens and whimsical colored lamps suspended over the minimalist cocktail bar. There’s an extensive wine selection, and an outdoor terrace that’s open in warmer weather. Look out at the city, or to the horizon beyond. This particular Shangri-La might not literally be the sacred place of refuge described in in ancient Tibetan texts, but Canada, huge and largely pristine, is its own kind of paradise.

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