The best hotels in Lanzarote
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When it comes to Lanzarote, don’t believe the naysayers (“Lanza-grotty” be damned). This isn’t just an island of dramatic volcanic landscapes and the nature-facing whitewashed architecture of the great midcentury designer-planner Cesar Manrique. It’s also home to some brilliant boutique stays, especially away from the purpose-built coastal resorts and inland towards cool little towns like the historic capital of Teguise, now the locus of go-slow creative Lanzarote. The tone was set in the Noughties and 2010s, with the opening of Finca Malvasia and Buenavista Lanzarote, both design- and eco-conscious boltholes amid stark black wine-growing landscapes. More similarly intimate stays have followed, with a fresh crop in recent years including Hektor, an arty vegan farmstay in the north of the island, and the languorously cool Casa De Las Flores in Teguise. The late 2023 opening of the 20-room Cesar Lanzarote, in a clifftop house once owned by Manrique’s father, has taken the island’s hotel scene to a new level – but it’s far from the only option on an island that’s very much having a moment. Here we round up our top picks for the best hotels in Lanzarote.
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Ana LuihotelCésar Lanzarote
Lanzarote has long been home to independent boutique hotels and seafront grand dames like the storied Hotel Fariones, built in 1966. The 20-room Cesar Lanzarote, with a show-stopping cliff top pool and terrace, ticks the box for a full-service boutique treasure worthy of the Balearics. It’s also the first with a true connection to Cesar Manrique, as the original 1930s house belonged to his father Gumersindo. As with Menorcan sister hotels Amagatay and Morvedra Nou, part of the Numa Signature group, the building’s interiors were overseen by Spanish designer Virginia Nieto. She has created a biophilic soft green scheme in the bones of what was also once a girl’s school. The organic-shaped pool was inspired by Manrique’s Jameos Del Agua, and is surrounded by white-and-black striped loungers and a striking piece of cubist-style wall art by Manrique’s cousin Eduardo. At golden hour, ideally with a long-pour G&T, the views stretch all the way to Fuerteventura across a dramatic ochre landscape. The zero-kilometre restaurant, using produce from the gardens, is already among the best on the island. Renowned Madrid chef Juanjo López is the brains behind creative dishes like avocado with mojo and crispy fried moray eel, well paired with the smoothly complex Cesar house volcanic wine.
Address: Barranco Por la Vegueta, 24, 35572, Tías
Price: Doubles from about £280 per night, minimum two-night stay
Ana LuiFinca Malvasia
Back in the distant Noughties, it was a punchy move to leave a Shoreditch creative agency career to launch a volcanic-modernist bolthole amid the stark black-ash landscape of Lanzarote’s central La Geria wine-growing region – but that’s exactly what Richard and Tarnya Norse-Evans did. Hosting countless fashion shoots and art projects along the way, Finca Malvasia has set the tone for Lanzarote’s Manrique-influenced hotel scene – and its six cool volcanic stone-walled apartments and suites around the show-stopping, cactus-fringed lagoon pool are still going strong. So too is the Norse-Evans’ good-life ethos, with keen surfer Richard able to arrange surf days at the Famara beach to the north, as well as massages, yoga sessions and wine-tasting tours. The couple are always at the end of a phone line, and can deliver platters including Canarian cheeses, membrillo quince jelly and bread with spicy mojo sauce – as well as the crisp mineral white wines grown right here. At the end of a dirt road, Finca Malvasia still feels like a world apart – in the best possible way.
Address: Cam. El Oratorio, 14, 35572, Tías
Price: From about £176 per night, minimum two-night stay
Hektor
The amiable Belgian couple Yves Drieghe and Bert Roger Pieters left their Ghent creative agency to remodel this whitewashed family farmhouse and regenerate two hectares of hillside land on the edge of tiny Los Valles, in the quiet north. Five suites – including farm-influenced El Granjero or La Grafista, with graphic posters and punchy oranges – all have living rooms and a rustic-hipster style reflective of their owners. At breakfast, over chilled tunes and one of Bert’s vegan Benedicts, there’s a reasonable chance of meeting a blissed-out resident artist or Frits the friendly Kooijker cross-breed – just one of many rescued animals here, from Silvestre the majerero donkey to Felipe the cocky pato negro duck. In the evenings, the lowering sun washes over the fig trees and agave plants; the terrace loungers and tiny pool, painted with an abstract blue face by Belgian artist Stefaan De Crook, aka Strook, one of many friends and former guests to have left a lasting artistic impression on this supremely chill corner of Lanzarote.
Address: C. San Isidro Labrador, 65, 35539, Teguise
Price: Suites from about £106
Casa De Las Flores
Madrid hotelier Oscar Cubillo Blasco along with his costume designer partner Gigi De Vidal found this 250-year-old townhouse in the historic capital of Teguise – also home to the lovely nine-room Palacio Ico boutique, and now the charming centre of go-slow Lanzarote. The ever-stylish couple have turned it into a coolly minimal, supremely chilled five-bed bolthole filled with art, including the oversized textile pieces that multi-faceted artist De Vidal stitches in her SECA studio opposite. Oscar’s daily-changing breakfasts in the magazine-strewn courtyard are casually sublime – a rockfish bocadillo with herby mojo sauce was a highlight – and guests can help themselves to crisply mineral Malvasia whites or local liqueurs from the honesty bar on the way to suites like the Manrique-influenced El Patio, with its cacti and private aquamarine plunge pool. Like other Lanzarote boutiques, there are excellent iPad guides to the island in rooms, and Oscar – who clearly loves managing a small-scale hotel after spending years working with Starwood – is generous with his time and tips on the best of the island.
Address: 1, 35530, Teguise
Price: Suites from about £135
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Ruben AcostaBuenavista Lanzarote
Part of an earlier generation of cool stays, and now almost a decade old, Buenavista still has few rivals for visual drama – with its five one-off glassy suites all peering out onto a stark black volcanic landscape east of La Geria. Owners Gonzalo and Mayca Bethencourt came across a series of old farm buildings more than a decade ago and entrusted Lanzarote-born, Berlin-based architect Néstor Pérez Batista to go wild, creating Jetsons-nature-modernism spaces defined by organic textures and curvy picture windows. Guests simply open the door in the morning for a fabulous breakfast spread to arrive, sometimes followed by one of the Bethencourts’ three Labradors mooching across the low-impact boardwalks. Over the years, Buenavista has drawn a cool, Leica-toting Spanish crowd, including the likes of the actor Aitana Sanchez-Gijon and tastemaker/skincare entrepreneur Nuria Val, who’ve made this something of an Insta-favourite. The Bethencourts, who live onsite, are also keen champions of island creatives, from the bubbly ceramics of island potter Eguzkine Zerain to their house wine made with nearby natural winemakers Bodega Cohombrillo.
Address: Carr. Conil, 22, 35572, Tías
Price: From about £268 per night, minimum two-night stay
Emma OvinCasa De Los Naranjos
While many of the new Lanzarote hotels have notes of whitewashed Manrique modernism, this one’s a period-accurate conversion of an early 19th-century manor house in the sleepy northern town of Haría, which still has the original orange garden and rare library with its Underwood typewriter and antique tomes. Owner José Antonio García fell in love with the house on a family holiday, and left an engineering career in Madrid to restore it, using original woods where possible and filling it with antiques bought at auctions in Madrid. Eight grand rooms feature enormous bathrooms with freestanding claw-footed baths, chandeliers and traditional reclaimed wood vanities. For all the oil paintings and black-tie service at breakfast, the house is streaked with light, and Jose Antonio’s beloved Irish setter Balbo keeps the ambience the right side of formal.
Address: C. Rincón de Aganada, 4, 35520, Haría
Price: Doubles from about £100
Getty ImagesAlava Suites
Between inland Tahiche and seaside Costa Teguise, the six crisply whitewashed Alava Suites are the creation of Lanzarote fashion designer María Gonzalez Alava. If the whitewash and wicker aesthetic is familiar, there are classic Lanzarote touches like the volcanic stone walls and palms around a circular aquamarine pool that channels Cesar Manrique and is primed for golden-hour lounging. María’s home-made breakfasts are excellent – think spiced chickpea-flour pancakes – as is her personal guide to the best spots on the island, available on an iPad in each room.
Address: C. Italia, 4, 35508, Teguise
Price: Doubles from about £130, minimum two-night stay
Patricia CamporaaHotel Palacio Ico
In a beautiful whitewashed building in historic Teguise, first built in 1690, Hotel Palacio Ico is one of the smartest stays on the island – with nine mulberry-beamed, wabi sabi rooms and suites around a supremely chilled central courtyard. Formerly the home-workshop of Swiss avant garde artist Heidi Bucher, art is central, for example with sand-and-ash paintings by island artist Ildefonse Aguilar, or the freeform wrought-iron bed canopy in Suite 05, which once housed Bucher’s gallery. Homemade locavore breakfast spreads in the courtyard are sublime, with the same bubbly Eguzkine Zerain ceramic tableware as at Buenavista Lanzarote. A bit like Cesar Lanzarote – but unlike the prevailing B&B offering – Palacio Ico sets itself apart come dinner time, when ex-Martín Berasategui chef Victor Valverde gets creative with set menus revolving around Canarian ingredients like sweet La Santa prawns or black pig cheeks.
Address: C. el Rayo, 2, 35530, Teguise
Price: Doubles from about £138