Villa Magna
Style Aristocratic, dramatic, aromatic
Setting High-end Salamanca
Villa Magna has always been exclusive: its neighbours are ancient palaces, and it provided aristocrats with eye-bogglingly beautiful apartments in the Seventies. These days it’s open to all – if you’ve the euros to splurge on this city-central, unabashedly luxurious señorita, that is.
Need to know
- Rooms 150, including 50 suites.
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Rates
Double rooms from $375.08 (€290), excluding tax at 10 per cent.
The price shown represents the lowest nightly rate for a double room available at this hotel over the next 21 days. Any price conversions from the hotel's local currency (€290) have been conducted using today's exchange rates from xe.com.
- More details Rates exclude breakfast (€37 each).
- Facilities Spa, gym, gardens, hairdressers, business centre and a beauty salon. In rooms: preloaded iPod and dock, flatscreen TV, CD/DVD player, Penhaligon’s bath products and minibar. In-room treatments available.
- Check-out 12 noon, but flexible, subject to availability (and possibly a charge, depending on the time of departure). Earliest check-in, 3pm.
- Children Smith Junior is more than welcome. Cots are free, as are extra beds for under-12s (or €60 plus tax, for teens). Babysitting with a local nanny can be arranged for €25 an hour (plus €10 for the nanny’s travel costs); remember to give 24-hours’ notice. More...
- Also Smokers can light up in the smoking rooms (let the hotel know in advance).
Food and drink at Villa Magna
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Hotel restaurant
Weight-watchers will have a tough time here – there are two dazzling, calorie-bomb restaurants. The elegant grey-and-white Villa Magna is the main affair, with lofty windows, black mirrors, soft lighting and white linen armchairs with gold trim. The food is glam, too: shellfish risotto, cappelletti stuffed with veal and mushrooms, and scallop salad with truffle vinaigrette. Fans of Asian cuisine will love the second dining option: the Tse Yang restaurant. Red walls, antique furniture, hand-painted screens and lanterns provide the backdrop for some of Spain’s finest Cantonese food.
- Dress code Sizzling hot: give the national heroes a sartorial salute by cladding your body in Balenciaga, your feet in Blahniks.
- Top table Ask for a table by the window, so you can admire Madrid’s most glamorous.
- Last orders The restaurant serves dinner between 7.30pm and 11.30pm. Breakfast is 7am until 11am; lunch, 1.30pm until 4pm.
- Room service The 24-hour room service includes à la carte breakfast, available 6.30am until midday; a lunch and dinner menu of soups, salads, pasta, rice and meat mains until 11.30pm, and a range of light nibbles after that.
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Hotel bar
Sample pre-dinner cocktails at Magnum Bar: art deco styling, a walnut-coloured, wood-panelled bar, and seductively low lighting. Sip on vermut (vermouth), Madrid’s signature tipple, made from sweet white wine blended with herbs, flowers, fruit peel and seeds. On hot summer nights, a line of immaculately dressed locals snakes down the street: they’re queuing for Villa Magna’s terrace, keen to sit out sipping cocktails and delicately nibbling canapés.
Also worth knowing
- Weddings This property is suitable for weddings. More...
Villa Magna Paseo de la Castellana 22, Madrid, 28046
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Smith extra at Villa Magna
A bottle of cava; members booking suites will also get a cocktail each and tapas in the Magnum Bar
In the know
Our favourite rooms
The higher the room, the better the view. All Magna rooms survey Serrano Street, so you can pick out what you want from the window of El Corte Ingles (Madrid’s answer to Selfridges) by night, and buy them by morning. It’s worth spending a little extra for a Prestige room, which comes with more space to kick around in, an elegant sitting area, and a bathroom with both tub and rain shower. If you’re in the mood to really splash some cash, opt for either the Executive Suite (best if you’ve kids in tow – the separate sitting area can be used as a second bedroom), or the Real Suite if you’re feeling like Spanish royalty: a grand piano, kitchen, dining room with space for 12, fitness and wellness area, two bedrooms and bathrooms, and a vast terrace overlooking the city will all be yours to call home.
Packing tips
Bring every credit card you have at your disposal – this is shopping nirvana. (On the same theme, an empty case might come in handy.)
Also
Make your way to the first floor for El Club's treatments and Turkish baths; don swimwear for the sauna. The menu offers up some ambitious treatments: we’re booking ‘Bright eyes’, ‘Perfect body’ and ‘Age smart’, for starters. Make sure you’re back in your room by 6pm sharp, though, when a knock at the door will herald the delivery of your daily treat: a platter of home-made nibbles – macaroons, jamon Iberico with Manchego, canapés, a fruit plate piled high, and other temptations that merit a glass of cava.
