The Best Hotels Near Emerson on Hurumzi, by the Record
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Rooms at this small Stone Town hotel come with open-air bathtubs, ornate tiled floors, and the Zanzibar night pouring in whether you invited it or not, including the morning call to prayer. That's not a design flaw; it's the whole thesis. The rooftop restaurant looks out over old-town rooftops to the Indian Ocean, which at sunset is exactly as good as it sounds. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and a long way from anywhere ordinary.
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Eleven rooms in three centuries-old buildings on a pedestrian lane in Stone Town's ancient Kasbah, each one packed with a lifetime of antiques under high timbered ceilings. This small hotel was once an aristocratic home, and it still feels like one. A courtyard garden restaurant sits below; a rooftop Tea House above, where the evening begins with sundowners over the Stone Town skyline and moves into a five-course tasting menu.
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A 14-room boutique hotel in the heart of Stone Town, The Neela was put together by interior designer Nelly Levin using local materials and Zanzibari craft, with the result feeling grounded rather than themed. Bronze fixtures and crisp linens keep the rooms from tipping into fussiness. The rooftop is where candlelit cocktails meet the cooler end of the day, a useful gear-change after Stone Town's dense, layered streets below.
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The plunge pools come standard in the one-bedroom villas, which sets the tone for this small, handmade boutique resort on Zanzibar's east coast. An infinity pool anchors the days, mobile spa treatments can find you wherever you've settled, and the restaurant pulls from Swahili, Indian, Thai, and Japanese kitchens in the same meal. Excursions run from snorkeling to dolphin swims to Jozani Forest hikes, so leaving the pool is, occasionally, rewarded.
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Coral limestone walls built from material quarried on the island give this small boutique resort on Zanzibar's south coast a texture you want to run your hands across. Raw concrete, local textiles, and wooden furniture do the rest. A dramatic staircase drops straight into clear Indian Ocean water below the infinity pool. The team behind it pulled in architects from Mumbai and Auckland, and it shows in the best possible, unhypey way.
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Polished concrete walls, natural wood, and layers of woven straw give the rooms a texture that makes the neutral palette feel earned rather than generic. This boutique hotel sits on Zanzibar's East-South Coast, a few minutes from Jambiani, in the patch of shoreline that kitesurfers and slow-travel types have quietly claimed. Bungalows and suites come with private terraces or plunge pools, the restaurant leans into seafood and plants with a Mediterranean drift, and yoga classes happen poolside.