Six stylish new hotels in four great cities

Going full fabulous on Fifth Avenue

We’ve been waiting some while for the Fifth Avenue Hotel to open its doors, after a flurry of fanfare that started almost two years ago and stretched… too long. But now it’s here, resplendent at its 28th-and-Fifth address: a landmark building with a striking new glass tower attached (the rooms across both total 153). The interiors were given to Martin Brudnizki – very much the man of the hotel design-world moment, with projects ranging from the Splendido in Portofino to the Vesper Bar at the Dorchester – to reimagine and reconfigure. Brudnizki, already partial to a rich palette, has taken a further steer from The Fifth’s owner, Alex Ohebshalom, whose far-flung travels have clearly coloured the mood boards.

South-east Asia is in the peacock-hued walls, painted rattan screens and mother-of-pearl inlays; there’s a bit of Venice in the chandeliers dripping with teal and fuchsia and lemon-candy crystals. A similarly lush technicolour ballroom is downstairs. Andrew Carmellini (he of Locanda Verde, The Dutch and Lafayette) brings his name and his skills to the teal-and-saffron surrounds of Café Carmellini, on the ground floor. thefifthavenuehotel.com, from $895

High style Down Under

Melbourne has long felt like a city without much in the way of a good hotel scene (the notable exception being United Places, which straddles the five-star hotel/serviced flat line beautifully at its mint South Yarra location). Two new openings are changing that perception. The Ritz-Carlton Melbourne looks set to service both the business and leisure traveller from 80 storeys above the city, where the views extend from the Yarra Ranges to all the way out over the Bass Strait. The rooms, most of them spread between the 65th and 79th floors, are spacious and slick – some nice timber, cowhides in the suites – and their floor-to-ceiling windows frame cool architectural elements of West Side Place, the £1bn new mixed-use development the hotel is in, at the western edge of the central business district. The long, low bar seating at Atria, its modern-Australian restaurant, faces right out over the city view, and makes an ideal solo-dining spot.

To the south, on St Kilda Road, The Royce – housed in a 1928 former Rolls-Royce showroom – has just undergone a total renovation. Homage is paid throughout to the building’s art deco roots: pastel-sorbet tones and lots of shining nickel detailing in the lobby-bar; lovely shell-shaped marble tile work in the bathrooms. There’s an upper-floor terrace for breakfast in the sun, and you’re just a few blocks away from Melbourne’s botanic bardens, which are arguably the loveliest in Australia. ritzcarlton.com, from A$595 (about £370); roycehotel.com.au, from about £260

Chic times two, in the Sixth

Paris seems to give birth to a buzzy new hotel every other month. For December, we’ve two of them. The team that opened Hôtel Dame des Arts earlier this year now brings us Hôtel des Grands Voyageurs. On the Rue de Vaugirard, deep in the Sixth Arrondissement, the 138-room hotel was given to Fabrizio Casiraghi (a regular on Architectural Digest 100 lists) to design. He’s kept things simple: clean palette; elegant pleated white bed skirts to match the simple white linens; bronze mirrors designed by Osanna Visconti, bas-relief wood sculptures by rising-star craftsman François Gilles. The brasserie celebrates a host of transatlantic favourites, so you can have your pâté en croûte with a Waldorf Salad, your sole Grenobloise with a slice of apple pie. On the other side of Boulevard Raspail, on the Rue de Buci, the very promising-looking Villa-des-Prés will open its doors next week. It has 20 rooms and 14 suites, along with a full spa with indoor pool and steam rooms.

Upstairs, Bruno Borrione, known for Maison Pic in Valence and a handful of glittering restaurants including Fouquet’s, has collaborated with art dealer Amélie du Chalard, who commissioned more than 50 original works from 11 French artists. With the exception of two chairs, by Verner Panton and Poltrona Frau respectively, every piece of furniture was custom-designed for the hotel. The effect is of a modern, slightly masculine-leaning chic, particularly in the extremely appealing seventh-floor penthouses – dream Parisian living, under the eaves. hoteldesgrandsvoyageurs.com, from €363; villadespres.com, from €740

Oohs and aahs in the Eternal City

An unexpected hazard of spending too much time in Rome is that one becomes a bit jaded about being inside splendid 16th- and 17th-century palaces (oh, look, more frescoes, yes, wow). But then along comes a historic interior of such opulence and integrity that you’re back to picking your jaw up off the floor. The 39-suite Palazzo Roma, which opens on four floors of an aristocratic palace on the Via del Corso, is one such place. Owned by Eduardo Safdie, who is a partner in the JK Place group that owns the Hotel Vilòn and JK Place, Palazzo Roma marries an immaculate restoration of the original late-Renaissance building – five-metre-high, intarsia-inlaid coffered ceilings, half a dozen marbles, Versailles parquet everywhere – with rich, original bespoke interiors by the Milan-based Sicilian designer Giampiero Panepinto.

There’s a room dedicated to watches, the Sala degli Orologi; the first-floor lobby is dedicated to music, with an antique grand piano showcased under yet more soaring ceilings. The restaurant, Core (which will be overseen by Federico Sartucci, who’s moving over from the Vilòn’s excellent eatery, Adelaide) is proper fresco heaven; prepare to leave sated and possibly with a crick in your neck. palazzoroma.com, from €1,100