How we choose a Delhi hotel
We ask three questions before we suggest a single name. What time does your flight land? What do you most want to see? And do you want history, or simply perfect calm?
Landing before midnight with two nights: a central hotel, so you wake up near Lodhi Garden, Humayun's Tomb and Old Delhi.
Landing at three and leaving for Jaipur that day: Aerocity, five minutes from the terminal, so you are asleep within half an hour of collecting your bags.
The first night explained: our guide to Delhi, the gateway city shows how we plan it.
Our three questions
- When you land
- Before or after midnight
- What you want to see
- Old Delhi, or the gardens
- What you want to feel
- History, or perfect calm
- Where you go next
- Palaces, or the airport
- Two families of hotel: the older grand hotels, built between the 1930s and the 1970s, with history in their corridors and loyal Delhi families in their dining rooms.
- And the modern ones: palaces and calm contemporary hotels built for space, spas and service.
- Both are excellent: the question is whether you want to feel the city or be cocooned from it.
- Last stop after Rajasthan: after weeks of palaces you may want something different, modern and quiet, with a big bed and a good gym.
- First stop: a hotel with a sense of place starts the story beautifully.
- Two ends, two hotels: we often suggest a different hotel at each end of the trip.
Delhi's hotel neighbourhoods, explained
Delhi is vast, and in the evening traffic the wrong neighbourhood can cost you an hour each way. Most of the best hotels sit in a few green districts close together.
Where the hotels are
- Janpath
- The Imperial
- Lodhi Road
- The Oberoi, The Lodhi, the Taj Mahal Hotel
- Chanakyapuri
- The Leela Palace, ITC Maurya, Taj Palace
- Aerocity
- Beside the airport
- Gurugram
- Business city, far from the sights
Central New Delhi and Janpath
The area: around Connaught Place and Janpath, laid out by Lutyens' planners in the 1920s.
- Closest to Old Delhi: of all the luxury districts.
- It suits: travellers who want history, the Red Fort at dawn and walks to the old colonial heart of the city.
- The hotel here: The Imperial.
Lodhi Road and the golf course
The calmest part of central Delhi: the green belt of the Delhi Golf Club, Lodhi Garden and the Lodhi Estate, south of India Gate.
- A few minutes away: Humayun's Tomb, Sunder Nursery, Khan Market and the Nizamuddin shrine.
- The hotels: The Oberoi, The Lodhi and the Taj Mahal Hotel.
- Our usual choice: the neighbourhood we recommend most often.
Chanakyapuri, the diplomatic quarter
The feel: wide, quiet avenues, large gardens and tight security in the embassy district.
- The hotels: The Leela Palace, ITC Maurya and the Taj Palace.
- A good compromise: a little further from Old Delhi, but closer to the airport and the Qutub Minar.
Old Delhi
- What's there: only a handful of characterful small hotels in restored havelis.
- Who it suits: adventurous travellers who want to wake in the lanes, not those who need a pool and a quiet garden.
Aerocity
- What it is: a planned district of international hotels, restaurants and offices beside the airport.
- Not charming, very practical: for late arrivals, early departures and anyone driving straight to Jaipur, because it lies on the road south.
Gurugram
The business city: to the south-west, with some fine modern hotels.
- The catch: it is a long way from the monuments.
- When we suggest it: if you have business there, or a very short stay before driving to Neemrana and Jaipur.
Local tip
Choose the neighbourhood before the hotel. Old Delhi lovers sleep near Janpath, garden lovers near Lodhi Road, and early flyers in Aerocity.
The first twelve hours in your hotel
The car turns in at the gate, a guard checks under it with a mirror, your bags go through a scanner, and then the doors open onto flowers, cool air and a cup of masala tea. Welcome to Delhi.
Security: every large hotel in Delhi checks cars and bags at the entrance. It is done quickly and politely, so don't be alarmed.
Strange hours: the best hotels are very good at them.
What we arrange: we send your flight details ahead and ask for the room to be ready when you land.
The first twelve hours
- Met at
- Inside the arrivals hall
- Room
- Ready when you land
- First meal
- Dal and rice, or khichdi
- First walk
- Lodhi Garden or Sunder Nursery
- First outing
- Late afternoon, gently
- No searching outside: a member of our team or the hotel meets you inside the arrivals hall.
- Sleep first: as soon as you arrive, even if it is morning.
- Eat simply: a bowl of dal and rice or a plain khichdi, the soft rice and lentil dish every Indian grandmother prescribes for tired travellers.
- Drink water: plenty of it.
- When you wake: a slow walk, ideally in Lodhi Garden or Sunder Nursery, and nothing ambitious that afternoon.
- From the southern hotels: Humayun's Tomb in the evening light is the perfect first outing.
- From The Imperial: a drive past India Gate and the lit avenues of Lutyens' Delhi.
- Then: an early dinner in the hotel and a long night's sleep. Old Delhi at dawn the next morning feels like the real start.
Local tip
If jet lag wakes you at five, don't fight it. Go to Lodhi Garden at first light with Delhi's walkers. It is the best hour of the Delhi day.
The grand hotels
These are the hotels Delhi families choose for weddings, anniversaries and long Sunday lunches. Each has its own character, and each has been chosen by our guests for years.
The grand hotels
- The Imperial
- Opened 1936, Janpath
- The Oberoi
- Opened 1965, reopened 2018
- The Leela Palace
- Opened 2011, Diplomatic Enclave
- Taj Mahal Hotel
- Since the late 1970s
- The Claridges
- Opened in the 1950s
The Imperial, for history and Old Delhi
Opened: in 1936, inaugurated by the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, as New Delhi was taking shape.
The first great hotel: of the new capital, and it still feels like the 1930s.
- What you see: a long palm-lined drive, white colonnades, Art Deco touches and corridors hung with old prints, maps and paintings of India.
- Its own history: the hotel says leaders of the independence years met here, and it is easy to believe.
- Choose it if: you love history, want the Red Fort and Chandni Chowk at dawn, and like walking out of the gate into the city.
- Know that: it is less of a resort than the southern hotels, and the area around it is busier.
- The evenings: its bars and restaurants are Delhi family favourites for celebrations, which gives them a lovely local buzz.
The Oberoi, New Delhi, for calm and service
Opened: in 1965, overlooking the Delhi Golf Club.
Renovated: top to bottom, reopening in 2018. It is polished, quiet and contemporary inside.
- The setting: the trees of the golf course on one side, the dome of Humayun's Tomb a few minutes away, with Lodhi Garden and Khan Market close by.
- The service: famously precise, in the way Oberoi hotels across India are.
- Choose it for: a calm first night and a central base close to the gentle side of Delhi.
- Ask for: a room on the golf course side, looking over trees rather than the road.
- It suits: couples and families who want a hotel that simply works, without fuss.
The Leela Palace, New Delhi, for grandeur
Opened: in 2011, in the Diplomatic Enclave.
The most palatial: of Delhi's hotels, designed as a modern interpretation of Lutyens' Delhi.
- What you see: domes, marble, chandeliers, fresh flowers everywhere and a rooftop pool over the embassy district.
- Rooms: large and very comfortable.
- Choose it for: a grand, cocooned first night after a long flight, or a celebratory last night before flying home.
- Well placed: closer to the airport than the hotels further north, and handy for the Qutub Minar.
- A fitting overture: arriving in a palace is a lovely way to begin a journey to the real palaces of Rajasthan.
The Taj Mahal Hotel, Mansingh Road
A Delhi institution: since the late 1970s.
Where: a short walk from India Gate and Khan Market, close to Lodhi Garden.
- The lobby: one of the city's great meeting places.
- The restaurants: they have fed Delhi's political and business families for decades.
- Choose it for: location, warm and experienced service, and the feeling of being in the middle of Delhi life.
- It suits: travellers who enjoy a busy, social hotel more than a secluded one.
ITC Maurya, for food lovers
Where: Chanakyapuri. It has hosted many visiting heads of state.
- Bukhara: the robust tandoor cooking of the north-west frontier, eaten with your hands at low tables.
- Dum Pukht: slow-cooked dishes in the courtly style of Lucknow. Our food of Delhi guide has more on both.
- Choose it if: dinner is a high point of your travels, and you like a large, grand, well-run hotel close to the airport road.
The Claridges, a mid-century classic
Opened: in the 1950s, on a leafy avenue in the heart of Lutyens' Delhi.
- The feel: smaller and more old-fashioned than the big hotels, with lawns and a gentle, unhurried pace.
- It suits: travellers who want a central, characterful hotel on a quieter scale.
Modern, calm and contemporary
Not everyone wants marble and chandeliers. After two weeks of palace hotels in Rajasthan, many of our guests ask for something simple, modern and very quiet for their last night.
Facts to know
- The Lodhi
- Plunge pools, Indian Accent
- The Taj Palace
- Big gardens, near the airport
- Andaz Delhi
- Aerocity, design-led
- JW Marriott Aerocity
- Large and comfortable
The Lodhi
Where: beside Lodhi Garden.
The style: a calm, modern hotel of stone, wood and water.
- The rooms: large, many with their own plunge pool, and a beautiful outdoor pool.
- Indian Accent: the restaurant that made modern Indian cooking famous around the world.
- Choose it for: space, privacy and design, and an early walk in Lodhi Garden from the door.
The Taj Palace
Where: the Diplomatic Enclave, with large gardens, well placed for the airport.
- The feel: big, efficient and comfortable, popular with conferences.
- It suits: travellers who want a reliable stay between flights.
The hotels of Aerocity
Modern and well run: Andaz Delhi has a relaxed, design-led style, and JW Marriott Aerocity is large and comfortable.
- Close: both are a few minutes from the terminal.
- When we use them: arrivals after midnight, departures before dawn, and anyone driving straight to Jaipur, since they lie on the road south.
Heritage or modern, the honest difference
Rajasthan is the land of heritage hotels: real palaces, forts and havelis, still owned by the families who built them. Delhi is different, and it helps to know why.
Rajasthan is different: it is the land of real palaces, forts and havelis, still owned by the families who built them.
What happened in Delhi: the Mughal palaces became monuments, and the maharajas' Delhi houses became galleries, government guesthouses and cultural centres.
Heritage in Delhi
- Palace hotels
- None in the Rajasthani sense
- Jaipur House
- National Gallery of Modern Art
- Bikaner House
- A cultural centre
- Historic haveli hotel
- Haveli Dharampura
- Nearest fort hotel
- Neemrana, on the Jaipur road
- Twentieth-century heritage: the 1930s Imperial, the 1950s Claridges and the grand hotels of the 1960s and 1970s. Some of our guests love them more than the palaces.
- Haveli Dharampura: near the Jama Masjid, the best known of a few restored havelis, with a rooftop over the old city.
- Small and atmospheric: in the middle of the lanes. Not for everyone, but unforgettable for the right traveller.
- A real fort on night one: on the road to Jaipur, the fifteenth-century Neemrana Fort-Palace climbs a hillside in terraces.
- Then Jaipur: Rambagh Palace and our guide to palace hotels are waiting.
Which hotel suits which traveller
Over the years we have learned that the right hotel depends as much on who is travelling as on where it stands.
Who it suits
- Couples
- The Lodhi, The Leela Palace
- Families
- The Oberoi, Taj Palace, The Leela Palace
- Three generations
- The Oberoi, Taj Mahal Hotel
- Repeat visitors
- Haveli Dharampura, The Lodhi
Couples and honeymooners
- Our favourites: The Lodhi, with its plunge pools and calm design, and The Leela Palace, with its grandeur and rooftop pool. Both feel like a retreat.
- For history lovers: The Imperial, if you want to walk into the city.
Families with children
What matters: a good pool, a garden and space to run.
- Hotels that work: The Oberoi, the Taj Palace and The Leela Palace.
- Ask early: about connecting rooms. Our notes on travelling with children have more ideas.
Several generations together
What we look for: a calm lobby, easy lifts, gardens and restaurants that suit every age.
- Well suited: The Oberoi and the Taj Mahal Hotel.
- The pace: short outings with rests in between.
Repeat visitors
- Try a new corner: Haveli Dharampura in Old Delhi for the lanes.
- Or: The Lodhi, for Lodhi Garden and the boutiques of Khan Market and Meherchand Market.
Which room to ask for
In Delhi the view is less important than the quiet. A room away from the road, with a garden or a golf course outside, makes all the difference after a long flight.
Quiet over views: a room away from the road, with a garden or golf course outside, makes all the difference after a long flight.
At The Oberoi: the golf course side looks over trees rather than traffic.
What to ask for
- At The Oberoi
- The golf course side
- Elsewhere
- A higher floor, off the road
- Night arrival
- Room held from the night before
- In winter
- An air purifier
- Families
- Connecting rooms, early
- In the grand hotels: a higher floor away from the main road is quieter. We ask on your behalf.
- Landing at night: we arrange for most guests to have the room held from the night before, so you go straight to bed at three in the morning.
- Two nights: book a suite or larger room. Jet lag is easier with space to sit and eat breakfast slowly.
- Winter: ask for an air purifier. Most luxury hotels in Delhi have them, and on smoky days they change how you sleep.
- Families: connecting rooms are limited in every hotel, so ask well in advance.
- Celebrating? Tell us. We let the hotel know, and Delhi's hotels are very good at making a fuss.
What money really buys in a Delhi hotel
Our grandmother used to say that a good host is measured by how quickly the tea arrives. In Delhi's best hotels, it arrives before you have asked.
Calm: staff who keep the city at bay. After the airport and the roads, a quiet lobby with flowers and cool air is worth a great deal.
Time: a good hotel lets you check in at dawn, eat breakfast at noon and leave late for an evening flight.
What luxury means here
- Calm
- Thick walls, gardens, quiet lobbies
- Time
- Dawn check-in, late check-out
- People
- Concierge, careful driver, kind chef
- Not included
- Silence outside the gate
- Busiest
- October to March
- People: a concierge who knows a reliable guide, a car with a careful driver, a chef who will cook you plain dal and rice at midnight.
- What it can't buy: silence outside. On the way to any monument you meet traffic, noise and, in winter, smoke.
- How to handle it: short outings with long rests between. Our Delhi itinerary is built on that rhythm.
- Prices: they change with the season, the day of the week and big events, so we don't give them here.
- Book early: the best rooms go first from October to March, especially in the wedding season and around large conferences.
- The whole budget: our guide to what a luxury Rajasthan journey costs explains how Delhi fits in.
Eating in the hotels
In Delhi, the great hotel restaurants are not just for guests. They are where the city's families celebrate birthdays, close deals and argue over the last piece of kebab.
Not just for guests: the great hotel restaurants are where Delhi families celebrate birthdays, close deals and argue over the last kebab.
A gift when jet-lagged: some of the city's best restaurants are inside its hotels.
Bukhara: the same short menu of frontier tandoor dishes and slow-cooked black dal for decades.
Facts to know
- Bukhara
- ITC Maurya, frontier tandoor
- Dum Pukht
- ITC Maurya, Lucknow's courtly food
- Indian Accent
- The Lodhi, modern Indian
- Weekend lunch
- Any grand hotel's all-day restaurant
- Dum Pukht: the courtly, slow-cooked food of Lucknow, in the same hotel.
- Indian Accent: imaginative modern Indian cooking, famous far beyond Delhi.
- All-day restaurants: Delhi families come for long weekend lunches, and the atmosphere tells you a great deal about the city.
- Our balance: one great dinner in a hotel and one outside, perhaps an Old Delhi food walk with a guide.
- Book ahead: the famous tables fill in the winter months.
- No shame in room service: good Delhi hotel kitchens make excellent simple Indian food, and a quiet dinner in your room is often the best first night of all.
Seasons, air quality and when to book
Delhi's best months for sightseeing are also its busiest for hotels, and its winter air is something every visitor should plan around.
High season: from October to March the weather is pleasant and hotels fill with travellers, weddings and conferences.
Smog days: in November and December the air can be very poor for days at a time, with crop-burning smoke from neighbouring states trapped by cold, still air.
Facts to know
- Busiest
- October to March
- Book earliest
- Christmas and New Year
- Poorest air
- November and December
- Our favourite start
- February and March
- Quietest
- July to September
- What matters then: good air purifiers, an indoor pool, a spa and excellent restaurants, because you may spend more time inside.
- Our approach: flexible days and a close watch on the forecasts.
- February and March: the clearest skies and the most pleasant temperatures, our favourite months to begin a journey here.
- April to June: intense heat, so a good pool matters.
- July to September: monsoon humidity and heavy rain, but quieter hotels.
- Month by month: our best time to visit Delhi guide.
Where you stay next
A Delhi hotel is rarely the whole story. It is the first or last chapter of a longer journey, and we choose it with the next hotel in mind.
Agra next: a night at The Oberoi Amarvilas, with every room looking at the Taj Mahal, is the natural contrast to a calm, modern Delhi hotel.
Jaipur next: its palaces are grand and historic, so a quieter, contemporary Delhi hotel balances the journey.
Next hotel
- On to Agra
- The Oberoi Amarvilas
- On to Jaipur
- A quieter Delhi hotel first
- Flight before dawn
- Aerocity for the last night
- Evening flight
- Central hotel and a day room
- How we pair them: our journeys Delhi, Jaipur and Agra in luxury and the classic Golden Triangle show it.
- Ending in Delhi, early flight: Aerocity for the last night.
- Ending in Delhi, evening flight: a central hotel, with a day room to shower and rest before the airport.
- Timings: our guide to airports and flights explains them.
