Emirates Palace

A landmark Abu Dhabi palace hotel managed by Mandarin Oriental, with eight restaurants, lush gardens and two temperature-controlled pools.

Emirates Palace embodies everything Abu Dhabi is revered for (opulence, luxe and unapologetic extravagance) and it reaches for the stars quite literally, the minarets studding its rooftop pointed skyward like a statement of intent.

Now managed by Mandarin Oriental, the hotel is less a place to sleep than a destination in its own right. The gardens alone reward an afternoon’s wandering, while the eight restaurants (each run by a world-renowned chef) turn dining into a kind of taste-tour you could happily spend a stay completing. When the heat asks for it, two temperature-controlled swimming pools wait.

The location is as considered as the hotel itself. Emirates Palace sits conveniently close to Abu Dhabi’s most famous landmarks: the Presidential Palace and the Flower Clock are near at hand, and boutique shopping with genuine pretensions to rival the Champs-Élysées is moments away.

This is grand-hotel luxury at full volume: a property that does not whisper, and was never designed to.

For travellers who want Abu Dhabi’s most iconic address, with palatial scale, serious dining and the city’s headline sights on the doorstep, Emirates Palace is the obvious choice. Come for the spectacle; the gardens, the chefs and the gleaming architecture will more than make the case.