High above Florence, where the city feels like a painted backdrop, Villa San Michele has always played by its own rules. Built as a 15th-century Franciscan monastery in Fiesole, the property reopens in 2026 after an 18-month renovation that favours clarity over gloss. There are just 39 rooms and suites, reshaped by Florence-based Luigi Fragola Architects using stone, terracotta and antique fragments that let the building speak. Three new signature suites take centre stage, including Limonaia in the former orangery and The Grand Tour, once home to Napoleon Bonaparte. A first-ever Guerlain spa slips into the hillside.
The Mediterranean
The Mediterranean hot list
Spring 2026
Every season, a few Mediterranean openings and projects land before the wider hype catches up. The Mediterranean hot list is our seasonal dossier of what’s shaping the cultural and creative landscape across the Med, from design-forward launches and smart new addresses to exhibitions and events that are actually worth planning around. Everything here is filtered hard, with the names and details that matter.
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Top photography courtesy of Sant Roch
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Na Praia
Comporta, Portugal
Na Praia is a 113-key independent hotel project on a peninsula just beyond Comporta, set between the Atlantic and a protected nature reserve. The plan spans 340 hectares of preserved land and opens onto two kilometres of white sand, with guest cars parked at the edge of the site so the centre stays quiet. Founder José António Uva, the eighth-generation steward behind São Lourenço do Barrocal, cut the approved construction footprint by 80% after ecosystem research and put dune protection first. Architecture is led by Studio KO with landscape by Doxiadis+ and development by Estúdio Lisboa. Accommodation is split into 42 rooms, 3 suites, 63 houses and 5 villas, some with private pools. Five restaurants, a dune-set spa and resident-biologist walks keep the place rooted in the terrain.
Na Praia
Comporta
Portugal
Portugal
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Photography courtesy of Na Praia
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1/5
Zannier Île de Bendor
Île de Bendor, France
Once a playground for artists, divers and Riviera eccentrics (Salvador Dalí drank here, Joséphine Baker danced here and Yuri Gagarin dropped by), Île de Bendor has always been more idea than island. Bought in 1950 by pastis magnate Paul Ricard, it became a curious cultural experiment: artist studios instead of villas, pétanque instead of pretence and France’s first scuba diving centre carved into its rocky edge. After five years behind hoardings, the seven-hectare island reopens as Zannier Île de Bendor, with 93 rooms spread across three distinct zones and a village rhythm rebuilt from the ground up. Concrete is gone, trees are back and pastis returns to the square. Eight places to eat, a serious spa, ateliers for artists and a short boat ride from Bandol.
Zannier Île de Bendor
Île de Bendor
Bandol
France
Bandol
France
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Photography courtesy of Zannier Île de Bendor
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Sant Roch
Paris, France
In Paris’s first arrondissement near the Tuileries, Sant Roch is contrast therapy done with intent, not incense. Founders Jules and Chloé Bouscatel, also behind Monday Sports Club, built a two-level space of roughly four hundred square metres, designed by Toronto studio Futurstudio with timber, ambient light, aromatherapy and a curated soundscape. The headline is France’s largest sauna at sixty square metres, then five plunge pools kept between three and eight degrees Celsius. Go self-guided or book a group method session that folds in breathwork, meditation, sound immersion and movement.
Sant Roch
4 Rue Saint-Roch
Paris
France
Paris
France
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Photography courtesy of Sant Roch
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Villa San Michele
Florence, Italy
Villa San Michele
Via Doccia 4
Fiesole
Italy
Fiesole
Italy
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Photography courtesy of François Halard and Villa San Michele
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8/2
Chapters
Milan, Italy
In Milan neighbourhood Brera, this is retail for anyone bored of rails and logos: a tight edit of fashion, beauty and objects arranged as “chapters” you move through. Chapters is founded by Federica Montelli, formerly Head of Fashion at Rinascente with earlier roles at Prada and Sergio Rossi. Each chapter runs like a limited-time story where product, food and art collide, built to shift, disappear and restart. On the brand’s own shelves, ‘Vacanza’ and ‘Minimalista’ set the tone: clean wardrobe pieces, small design hits and gifts with an editorial spine.
Chapters
Via Tommaso Grossi, 6
Milan
Italy
Milan
Italy
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Photography courtesy of Chapters
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10/3
The Lake Como Edition
Cadenabbia, Italy
Set on Lake Como’s western shore, The Lake Como Edition arrives in March 2026 with a confidence that feels deliberately restrained. Housed in a restored 19th-century palazzo, the hotel resists nostalgia in favour of clarity: original arches and vaulted volumes are kept intact, then sharpened by Neri & Hu’s pared-back modernism. This is Edition at its most architectural. A floating pool edges out onto the lake. Interiors lean on stone, terrazzo and shadow rather than ornament. Food matters here too. Three-Michelin-starred chef Mauro Colagreco makes his first move on Italian soil, shaping four dining spaces rooted in nature rather than spectacle. The Longevity Spa signals an interesting shift for Como: less glamour, more intent.
The Lake Como Edition
Via Regina 41
Griante Cadenabbia
Italy
Griante Cadenabbia
Italy
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Photography courtesy of The Lake Como Edition
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Kalve Coffee
Paris, France
A few blocks from the Eiffel Tower orbit, Kalve’s Paris shop is Latvia’s specialty roaster doing what it does best: a tight bar, calm service and coffee that doesn’t need extras. It’s the brand’s 11th location, designed by Field Studio with a moody, mineral interior concept Kalve calls ‘Archive of Lost Plants’. Espresso is the default order, then switch to filter if you want to taste what the roastery is chasing. Beans are on the shelf for home brewing, so you can keep the habit going once you leave the neighbourhood.
Kalve Coffee
40 Rue Desaix
Paris
France
Paris
France
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Photography courtesy of Kalve Coffee
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9/2
L’Aventure
Paris, France
In Paris’s 16th arrondissement near the Arc de Triomphe, L’Aventure is a Beaumarly mash-up of five-star hotel, restaurant and private club, designed to keep you in the building all night. Public spaces by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio riff on Victor Hugo’s The Legend of the Ages, with Art Deco mood, polished marble, velvet and mythological mosaics, plus digital scenography and lighting by Isometrix. Upstairs, the 15-room hotel is Vincent Darré’s playground, with hand-painted surrealist frescoes and scavenged furniture that swings between Haussmannian and 1970s.
L’Aventure
4 Av. Victor Hugo
Paris
France
Paris
France
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Photography courtesy of Matthieu Salvaing and L’Aventure
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Salotto Retori
Milan, Italy
In Milan’s Quadrilatero della Moda, fashion brand Retori has opened Salotto Retori, its first global flagship. The 400 square metre, two-storey space was designed by Massimiliano Locatelli’s Locatelli Partners and keeps Tadao Ando’s studded concrete wall as the anchor. Think mid-century warmth, Japanese clarity and gallery light over woods, stone, aged bronze and ceramics. Programming is part of the pitch: exhibitions, workshops, dinners and performances, starting with Brazilian self-taught painter Manuela Navas and Polish sound artist Antonina Nowacka. Retori’s signature on the rails is draped outerwear, especially the shawl-collar coat, plus wrap dresses, Saharan jackets and linen suits, all made in Italy. Downstairs, the new Milan HQ stays visible.
Salotto Retori
Via della Spiga 48
Milan
Italy
Milan
Italy
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Photography courtesy of Piergiorgio Sorgetti and Retori
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Andaz Lisbon
Lisbon, Portugal
Lisbon doesn’t need another polite hotel and Andaz Lisbon understands that. Opening on Rua do Comércio, in the thick of Baixa’s tourist current and civic history, it plants 170 rooms and suites directly into the city’s daily flow. Interiors by Studio Urquiola avoid pastiche, translating azulejos, calçada paving and Atlantic light into a contemporary register. Upstairs, a rooftop restaurant and terrace pull focus toward Lusitanian flavours, cocktails and live music rather than sunset selfies alone. Downstairs, Andaz Lounge borrows from Lisbon’s kiosk culture, blurring hotel and hangout. Art by local and international names runs throughout, positioning the building as a participant in the city’s cultural conversation.
Andaz Lisbon
R. do Comércio 132
Lisbon
Portugal
Lisbon
Portugal
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Photography courtesy of Andaz Lisbon
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