The St. Regis Abu Dhabi

Within the Nation Towers complex on Abu Dhabi’s Corniche waterfront, The St Regis Abu Dhabi occupies the 33rd through 54th floors of a tower completed in 2013 with an architecture of Arabic geometric patterns applied to a contemporary curtain-wall facade and interiors designed by Sybille de Margerie with a palette that draws on the mineral colours of the Arabian Peninsula’s landscape. The 283 rooms and suites include the Nation Suite — suspended between the two towers of the complex at the 52nd floor — which holds a claim to one of the most dramatic positions in any hotel in the Gulf. The Corniche’s protected beachfront and the views across the Gulf towards Saadiyat Island and the horizon of the Arabian Sea give the hotel’s upper floors a spatial grandeur appropriate to the St Regis brand’s most architecturally ambitious properties.

The restaurant programme includes Roberto’s for contemporary Italian cuisine, Iridium spa’s treatment programme drawing on Arabian wellness traditions, and the Terrace on the Corniche’s waterfront setting for casual dining above the Arabian Gulf. The St Regis butler service applies its protocols to a Gulf context that adds particular layers of cultural attentiveness, and the hotel’s relationships with the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, and the cultural calendar of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and Art Abu Dhabi give its concierge team a cultural programme of genuine depth. The Emirates Palace and the Heritage Village at the mouth of the Breakwater are within a short distance of the Corniche position.

The St Regis Abu Dhabi’s tower position on the Corniche gives it the best elevated views of any hotel on the waterfront, and the quality of the Gulf sunset seen from the upper floors — across a body of water that connects the UAE to Iran, Oman, and the broader Persian Gulf world — provides an orientation to the geography of the Arabian Peninsula that the city’s inland addresses cannot offer in the same way.