Bristol Harbour Hotel

Bristol isn't known for its luxury hotels, and this hotel has already taken the city's hotel scene to a new level. Bang in the city centre, having been fashioned out of not one but two of the city's landmark bank buildings – the Edwardian former Midland Bank and the splendid old Lloyd's Bank building, grade-2-listed and inspired in the mid-nineteenth-century by Sansovino's famous Library in Venice – it's as urban as Bristol gets, close to the waterfront and within walking distance of pretty much everywhere in the city centre. The hotel's magnificent facade is carried through into the interior, built as a homage to the solid virtues of the banking world but now making a different sort of statement – of luxury, comfort and a fair dash of style.

The 42 guest rooms are spacious and well-appointed cocoons in which you want to spend time, enjoying the views across the city centre and big, comfy beds, en-suite bathrooms with rainfall showers and White Company toiletries, flatscreen TVs with Freeview, tea- and coffee-making facilities and Nespresso machines – and, last but definitely not least, very welcome decanters of complimentary gin and sherry. There's also 24-hour room-service, but you'd be crazy not to explore the building: the Jetty restaurant is a crisp and contemporary place for dinner, with a tempting, mainly seafood- and fish-based menu that's moderately priced and attracts its fair share of non-residents. Afterwards you can retire to the funky Gold Bar for cocktails and occasional DJs, in between admiring the fabulous Sansovino Room, which is without question one of the city centre's most spectacular interiors, hosting functions and multiple weddings for up to 300 people.  Finally, the former bank vaults house a small gym and the hotel's luxury spa, complete with plunge pool, hydrotherapy pool, sauna and steam room, and no less than 8 treatment rooms. It was about time Bristol got itself a hotel like this, and finally...  it's arrived.