Best Urban Hotels 2014: the winners

JK Place Roma, Italy

It takes a lot for a newcomer to make an impression in Rome. Which makes the speed at which the city has embraced JK Place Roma since its somewhat low-key opening in mid-2013 all the more impressive. Indeed, local admiration is matched by that of our panel of well-travelled judges, who were almost unanimous in selecting the hotel as the winner of this year’s Best Urban Hotel awards.

Via Monte D’Oro, 30, Rome, tel: 39. 0698 2634, www.jkroma.com. Rates: from €600

JK Place Roma, Italy

With a near-faultless location next to the Palazzo Borghese and only a short stride from via Condotti, the 30-room hotel is the third addition to a growing brood of intimate, bijou properties from JK Place founder Ori Kafri, following outposts in Florence and Capri.

Via Monte D’Oro, 30, Rome, tel: 39. 0698 2634, www.jkroma.com. Rates: from €600

JK Place Roma, Italy

Housed in a 19th-century pile that was once the architecture school of the University of Rome, the hotel achieves the cloistered quiet of a private home, thanks to architect Michele Bönan, who has kept much of the four-storey building’s original features, while gracefully opening up the interior spaces to transform former classrooms into generously proportioned guest rooms.

Via Monte D’Oro, 30, Rome, tel: 39. 0698 2634, www.jkroma.com. Rates: from €600

JK Place Roma, Italy

The public spaces, meanwhile, are equally plush in their devotion to rich fabrics, deep armchairs, ink-streaked marble and elegant bronze-trimmed doors.

Via Monte D’Oro, 30, Rome, tel: 39. 0698 2634, www.jkroma.com. Rates: from €600

JK Place Roma, Italy

And in a city where turf wars are fought over pasta dishes and seasonal specialities, the in-house JK Café, headed by chef Antonio Martucci, comes up trumps with a menu that includes home-made gnocchi dusted with smoked cardamom powder, a risotto stirred through with fresh saffron and marrow, and a spaghetti carbonara flavoured with cheek lard and Sarawak pepper. A rooftop bar is in the works, but at least a year away.

Via Monte D’Oro, 30, Rome, tel: 39. 0698 2634, www.jkroma.com. Rates: from €600

Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles, USA

The Ace hotel group can almost always be relied upon to open in locations that ride a neighbourhood’s hipster-driven upward swing. The launch of the downtown Los Angeles property is no different, cleverly tapping into the area’s resurgence as a little powerhouse community of smart restaurants, historic theatres, independent retailers and art centres.

929 S Broadway, Los Angeles, tel: 1.213 623 3233, www.acehotel.com/losangeles. Rates: from $199

Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles, USA

Housed in the luminous United Artists Building – a pastiche of Spanish cathedral architecture with added art deco concrete bulk – the 182-room hotel is a joint effort between Atelier Ace and local collective Commune Design. The look channels the brand’s familiar design tropes, with uncluttered furniture and raw fixtures, roughly textured Pendleton blankets, kilim pillows and Navajo patterns.

929 S Broadway, Los Angeles, tel: 1.213 623 3233, www.acehotel.com/losangeles. Rates: from $199

Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles, USA

The rooftop features a stark, bunker-like bar, decorative steel chains and a concrete pool inspired by artist Donald Judd’s version in Marfa, Texas.

929 S Broadway, Los Angeles, tel: 1.213 623 3233, www.acehotel.com/losangeles. Rates: from $199

Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles, USA

But the pièce de résistance is the immaculately restored 1,600-seat theatre. Built in the 1920s, it was previously the flagship movie theatre of United Artists, and plays host to a number of events, from premieres to concerts.

929 S Broadway, Los Angeles, tel: 1.213 623 3233, www.acehotel.com/losangeles. Rates: from $199

The Temple Hotel, Beijing, China

For Beijing-based investment banker Juan van Wassenhove and his local Chinese partners Li Chow and Lin Fan, transforming a crumbling Tibetan Buddhist temple in the centre of the capital into a stylishly austere eight-room hotel has been a labour of love. Between the 1950s and 1970s, as part of the country’s modernisation surge, the temple was repurposed to see a factory – where China’s first black and white television set was assembled – unceremoniously inserted into the grounds.

23 Shatan North Street, Dongcheng District, tel: 86. 10 8401 5680, www.thetemplehotel.com. Rates: from RMB2,000

The Temple Hotel, Beijing, China

Thankfully, the bones of the mid-1700s temple, with its original timber rafters and decorative tiling, remained untouched. Over eight years, van Wassenhove and his partners worked with the Beijing Design Institute for the Protection of Cultural Relics to restore the quiet grace of the original architecture. The hotel opened this year to applause, with particular enthusiasm for the sensitive introduction of modern touches into the former monks’ quarters, including soothing lighting by Ingo Maurer, a skylight installation by James Turrell and a collection of Chinese contemporary art.

23 Shatan North Street, Dongcheng District, tel: 86. 10 8401 5680, www.thetemplehotel.com. Rates: from RMB2,000