Apparently, the world’s best hotels are mostly in Europe

The founders of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants and Bars lists have crowned the world’s best hotel for the first time – and it’s Lake Como’s Passalacqua.

The tiny, 24-room hotel only just opened in June 2022 after a years-long restoration to its 18th century building – which has played host to guests as illustrious as Napoleon Bonaparte, Winston Churchill, and composer Vincenzo Bellini who made it his home in the 1800s. The hotel’s instant, meteoric rise in popularity among the jet set has come largely on the heels of charismatic owners Paolo, Antonella and Valentina De Santis who have made the hotel a true labour of love, and who had a built-in following as owners of the beloved Grand Hotel Tremezzo, also in Lake Como.