One&Only Cape Town

This resort, which opened in 2009 on the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, features 131 spacious, high-tech rooms and a knockout first impression: the hotel’s 40-foot-tall picture window framing Table Mountain at Vista Bar & Lounge. Outsize luxury is trumpeted everywhere here, from the tri-level "wine loft" in front of Reuben's to an outpost of sushi master Nobuyuki Matsuhisa's Nobu and the spa’s two manicure clinics by Bastien Gonzalez. The cream-colored, Adam D. Tihany–designed rooms are slick and vast; baths have a wow factor, too, though with a notable form-over-function lapse (the freestanding tubs are huge, beautiful—and a bit uncomfortable).