The Best Hotels Near Los Marinos, by the Record
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A restored Art Deco building in Havana's old Jewish quarter, Hotel Raquel is one of those places that earns its quirks: twenty-five rooms named for Old Testament figures, a restaurant serving Jewish cuisine in a country where that requires some explaining, and enough architectural detail to keep you looking. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels. The overall comfort level is Havana-standard, which is a gentle way of managing expectations.
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Green Cuban marble bathrooms and antique beamed ceilings in all twenty-five rooms make the Hotel Florida feel less like a boutique stay and more like a colonial-era time capsule, which is more or less the point. The lobby glows under an atrium, ringed by arched arcades, and a piano bar keeps things lively after dark. It sits just off the Plaza de Armas in the old quarter, and it takes the Spanish Colonial heritage seriously enough to make other Havana hotels look modern by comparison.
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Kempinski dropped a 200-plus-room luxury hotel into the heart of Old Havana, and the result feels like Geneva got on a plane and forgot where it was going. Rooms are sleek and contemporary, the spa is firmly European in temperament, and the wi-fi, still a novelty on the island, works. Guests who want the crumbling-grandeur Cuba of the imagination should look elsewhere; guests who want marble and a functioning minibar have found their place.
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Colonial brick archways from the original structure are still visible in the inner courtyard, giving this 63-room Paseo de Martí hotel a sense of depth that most renovations tend to sand away. Guest rooms run contemporary, the restaurant spills onto the old arcade terrace, and the whole thing sits at the manageable scale of a place that never confused size with grandeur. The Michelin Guide has it selected among its hotels.
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The Nacional sits above the Malecón like it owns Havana, which, for most of the last century, it more or less has. This grand hotel has hosted Churchill, Hemingway, Sinatra, and the Mob, and its corridors still carry that weight. The rooms won't fool anyone into thinking they're in Dubai, but the preserved-in-amber quality is the whole point. Order a mojito on the terrace and watch the sea.