Review

This impressive hotel is one of our top choices in Buenos Aires. Part modern tower, designed to depict the future of Buenos Aires, and part palace, the Palacio Duhau Park Hyatt – which opened in 2006 – is the sexiest building in Recoleta.

Formerly owned by the Duhau family, the Palacio Duhau was built in 1934 by French architect Leon Dourge. As the family grew, the palace was divided up until it became a rabbit warren of flats. That’s when the Park Hyatt empire snapped up the property.

The hotel now seamlessly incorporates vintage glamour with state-of-the-art design. Nowhere else in Buenos Aires will you find sofas made by the Ferrari seat designers beside a room coated in 17th-century French panelling from a Normandy castle.

The palace and the tower are linked by an underground tunnel lined with modern art and together serve up 165 rooms. Ask for one of the 23 rooms –12 of which are suites – in the Palacio Duhau: you want the palace, not the tower. There is no outdoor bathing here, but there is a 25-metre underground pool amid an 8,000 square metre spa.

In the drinking department, the oak bar – with that Normandy panelling – and a subterranean wine and cheese layer await you. Outside, Carlos Thays, who designed Buenos Aires’ botanical gardens, has landscaped a ‘Paradise Found’ garden on what used to be the Duhau family’s football pitch.

The resident Gioia restaurant is unbeatable for an outdoor lunch buffet. With a top-flight nightlife promoter, this hotel would be bulging with beautiful women in the evenings, but for now the policy is privacy but no party.