The Madrid EDITION: the best rooftop in the city, three minutes from Sol

The youngest hotel in this company and the most sociable. Ian Schrager's EDITION brand took a new build on Plaza de Celenque, three minutes' walk from Puerta del Sol, and opened in 2022 into a city whose luxury hotels were almost entirely restored palaces. It is the one that does something different, and it is aimed squarely at people who intend to be out rather than in.

The rooftop

The largest luxury rooftop pool in Madrid, on the fourth floor, with twenty five sunbeds, five cabanas and a view straight across the roofline of the old city. In a capital with no coast, no river worth the name and forty degree Julys, an outdoor pool of this size in the centre is a genuine civic asset, and it is the reason a good proportion of guests book.

It has two distinct personalities. Before about eleven in the morning it is quiet, enormous and one of the best places to have breakfast in Madrid. From noon at summer weekends it becomes a proper scene, with music, a full bar and a queue for the cabanas, and a good number of the people up there are not staying in the hotel. Both versions are enjoyable. Knowing which one you have walked into is the whole trick.

The building and the rooms

Designed by Nieto Sobejano, with a limestone lattice facade that manages to be contemporary without arguing with the street. Inside it is characteristically EDITION: pale, calm, low-lit, with a lot of oak and Spanish marble, and a lobby that runs as a bar in the evening.

Rooms are quieter in mood than the public spaces, with excellent beds, good bathrooms and the brand's habit of concealing the light switches somewhere you will find on the second night. Ask for a high floor away from the pool terrace and you will sleep extremely well; that one sentence at booking is the difference between a good stay and a broken one at a summer weekend, and the staff will handle it without fuss if asked.

Everything here is well made. One question at the point of booking decides which version of the hotel you get.

The spa

More modest than the rooftop suggests, and worth setting expectations for: five treatment rooms working with Natura Bisse and a twenty four hour gym, rather than a thermal circuit. The treatments themselves are good and the gym is genuinely well equipped, but if a spa is the centrepiece of the trip then the Four Seasons or URSO are the more natural answers, and this hotel is not really trying to compete on that ground.

Food

Better than it needs to be. Jerónimo does a Mexican menu that has held its own against a sceptical city, and the ground floor bar is a good place to start an evening rather than merely a place to wait. Breakfast on the rooftop, taken early, is the meal to prioritise.

The location

The strongest on this list and not by a small margin. Sol is three minutes, Plaza Mayor six, the Mercado de San Miguel seven, the Prado about fifteen. For a first trip to Madrid done entirely on foot, this is the address, and no other hotel in this bracket is as well placed for it.

What the rate buys

Around three hundred and ninety euros in shoulder season, which for a hotel of this quality in this position is the best value in this company by a clear margin. Peak summer is a different market and rates can climb steeply, as they do across the city during the fair weeks and around major fixtures.

The practical conclusion is a happy one: book it in June or September and you get the best location in Madrid, the best rooftop in Madrid, and a rate that undercuts every other hotel here. Few hotels have such a clear right answer.

The particulars

• Where: Plaza de Celenque, three minutes from Puerta del Sol.
• Ask for: a high floor away from the pool terrace. Say it at booking.
• Do not miss: the rooftop before eleven, when it is nearly empty.
• Best months: June and September, for the rate and the temperature.
• Best for: a first trip, a long weekend, or anyone who wants to walk everywhere.