The Best Places in China

The lobby ceiling was designed to evoke a starry universe, and the architects at Cheng Chung Design apparently meant that literally in the best possible way, non-literally. This is a full-on luxury hotel, theatrical from arrival, with lavish rooms and the kind of high-end comforts that make the bill feel inevitable. The restaurants lean into contemporary Hunan cuisine, which in Changsha is exactly what you'd hope for.

Every one of the 372 rooms comes with a private balcony over Qujiangchi Lake, which sounds like a marketing line until you realize it holds across all 22 floors. This W Hotel plays the brand's signature maximalist hand: teal walls, patterned cushions, marble bathrooms with round mirrors the size of wagon wheels. WEI has open kitchens and theatrical plating, YEN handles Huaiyang fine dining under sculptural pendant lights, and WOOBAR does what WOOBARs do.

Xishuangbanna sits closer to the Mekong delta than to Beijing in spirit, and this boutique resort on the Lancang riverbank leans into that identity hard. Rattan, timber, red brick, and black roof tiles sit inside dense tropical foliage, with private hot spring baths and 24-hour butler service. Rainforest afternoon tea in the courtyard garden is exactly as good an idea as it sounds. A small, unhurried stay in a corner of Yunnan that operates on its own timezone.

A luxury hotel occupying the top quarter of a 263-meter tower on Zhongbei Road, the Wuhan Marriott Wuchang puts Sand Lake and East Lake in the window simultaneously, which feels like cheating. The lobby and corridors lean into Three Kingdoms lore, with Yellow Crane Tower motifs threading through the design. The M Club lounge claims the 61st floor with an outdoor terrace built for watching the city go dark. Rooms split between lake and city views, though at this height, both are doing a lot.

The skywells in the name are literal, narrow internal courtyards built centuries ago to pull daylight into a Huizhou-style mansion before electricity had opinions about it. The property has been restored into a luxury boutique hotel, with weathered old masonry set against freshly crafted traditional woodwork and modern furniture throughout. It sits in the rural Wuyuan hills, well outside anywhere resembling a city, which is rather the point.

The valley where they filmed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a ninety-metre walk from the front door, which is a strong opener for any guesthouse. This small family-run spot sits at the edge of the Huangshan scenic area, and the hosts have been guiding visitors through the mountain's routes and quieter paths for over two decades. Evenings sort themselves out around an outdoor fireplace and hot tub.

You walk into Barules through a scarlet London phone box, which sets the tone nicely. Inside, this cocktail bar pays quiet tribute to the craft, with portraits of bartending legends lining the walls and glass cabinets full of cocktail kit. The menu leans fresh and fruit-forward rather than classical, which surprises you given all the reverence on display. A bar for people who know the names on those portraits and enjoy the slight irony of ordering something bright and tropical beneath them.

A retro Coca-Cola vending machine in what looks like an abandoned sandwich shop turns out to be the door, which is exactly the kind of entrance Flask deserves. The bar sits behind it down a narrow brick passage that fire marshals would probably prefer not to know about. It's the sort of cocktail bar that makes you feel briefly like a genius for finding it, then immediately guilty for telling anyone.

The 34-metre bar counter was painstakingly rebuilt from old photographs after the building's last tenant, somewhat anticlimactically, was a KFC. This cocktail bar inside the Waldorf Astoria on the Bund channels old Shanghai with enough conviction that the gap in the timeline barely registers. The room feels like it has always been here, which is either a triumph of restoration or a very good illusion, and at this point the distinction hardly matters.

Dial zero on the retro telephone tucked inside El Ocho and a door opens into a 17-seat cocktail bar where there is no menu, only a conversation. The bartender listens, then builds something to order, while hot towels and crystal water glasses set a register closer to Tokyo than Shanghai. The passion here is personal in a way a larger room could never sustain.

A two-storey glazed brewing tower rises through the center of this hotel microbrewery bar, and the smell of yeasty mash greets you before you've found a seat. The brewing kit gives the sleek, woven-brick room something to look at besides itself, and a retro motorcycle with sidecar, pool table, and big screens do the work of keeping it from feeling like a lobby concept. Good for an unplanned second round.

A warren of mirror-lined rooms on the third floor of Zhang Yuan, this cocktail bar runs on velvet seats, low light, and a sunken bar that makes the whole place feel like a speakeasy someone actually finished decorating. The menu skews classical, organized by Old-Fashioneds, Flips, Tiki, and the rest, with dark spirits leading the charge. The name is Spanish for eight, which is lucky, which the Chinese know, which means the odds are already in your favor.

Tucked into the first floor of an apartment block on Wukang Lu, this cocktail bar commits to a decorating scheme where Qing dynasty meets Louis XVI, with gilt, lacquer, velvet in purple and scarlet, lion heads, and birdcages all arriving at once. The menu balances house originals against classics like the Bramble and Sidecar, though the room has already done most of the theatrical heavy lifting before your drink arrives.

A craft brewery bar spread across three floors of Sinan Mansions, Boxing Cat is where Shanghai's American expat crowd discovered they didn't have to drink watered-down lager forever. Exposed brick, leather sofas, outdoor seating, a pool table, and table football upstairs give the place a cheerfully unfussy feel. Big screens run movies on the lower floor while the wifi-dependent tap away at laptops. The house-brewed beers are the whole point.