The 13 Best Hotels in Hanoi

Bill Bensley designed this 47-room luxury hotel as a love letter to the opera house a few blocks away, imagining where the singers and costume designers might have stayed during the golden age of the art form. Every room pays tribute to a different opera figure, the spa runs theatrical, and the drinking options range from a chic bar to a full cocktail lounge. It holds a Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys, which tells you roughly what a night here costs.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Graham Greene and Charlie Chaplin once slept here, and the suites still carry their names. This Forbes Four Star, Michelin One Key hotel near Hoan Kiem Lake is a colonial-era landmark whose original 1901 Heritage Wing has been carefully restored without losing the slight mustiness that makes old hotels feel earned. The newer Opera Wing adds a contemporary-classic counterpoint. Indochine-style rooms, a spa, an outdoor pool, and several dining options round it out.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The building itself reads like a dare, a swooping futuristic shell designed by Carlos Zapata Studios that overlooks the National Convention Center rather than the Old Quarter. This is a large, polished international hotel with 450 rooms, an expansive eighth-floor spa, indoor pool, and Japanese and Cantonese restaurants on site. The vibe is less colonial Hanoi and more contemporary Singapore, which is either a selling point or the whole point, depending on who you're asking.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A boutique hotel on leafy Trần Phú Street, just west of the Old Quarter, where the rooftop infinity pool gives you the Hanoi skyline without the scooter soundtrack. The 60 rooms run to bold colors and modern bathrooms, with a spa, a gym, and an in-house tailor for anyone whose luggage didn't survive the trip. Temple of Literature and the lake are a short walk; the street food is even closer.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A boutique hotel in Hoan Kiem where the mattresses are roughly the height of a small child and the color scheme reads like someone handed Toulouse-Lautrec a paint bucket, which is fitting, since the bar downstairs is named for him. The colonial bones get a French polish throughout, and the absinthe ritual at La Fée Verte is performed with the solemnity it deserves. Bold, deliberate, and not remotely interested in blending in.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The design concept here borrows from both Swedish minimalism and French restraint, and somehow the two don't fight. This small hotel sits inside Hanoi's Old Quarter, one of the louder, more relentless neighborhoods on earth, and the interiors respond by going almost conspicuously quiet: natural textures, soft light, nothing competing for attention. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels. Think of it as somewhere to return to after the city has made its point.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A Guinness-recognized woodblock painting anchors the lobby of this heritage-leaning hotel a short walk from Hoan Kiem Lake. Dong Ho and Hang Trong folk art traditions show up in the murals and custom furnishings, giving the rooms something to look at beyond the minibar. The rooftop bar and restaurant put you above Hanoi's noise at a comfortable remove, which turns out to be exactly the right distance.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Some of the bungalows here sit directly on West Lake, reached by gently curving bridges, with the 800-year-old Golden Lotus Pagoda keeping watch from the shore. This InterContinental hotel trades French Colonial grandeur for contemporary rooms with wooden-slatted sliding doors and lantern-hung beds, most with lake-facing balconies. A cocktail pavilion lives on the bridge itself, which is either romantic or excessive depending on your mood, and the city center is ten minutes away.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Stone fireplaces and rattan lampshades sit inside rooms that blend French colonial bones with Vietnamese village details, about an hour outside Hanoi in the Ba Vi mountains. The Meliá resort offers a spa using locally sourced ingredients, a restaurant mixing Vietnamese and international cooking, and a colonial-era terrace bar where local spirits and mountain views compete for your attention. The kind of place where the city feels further than it is.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels