The most romantic hotels in Barcelona, from stylish suites to seductive views

Housed in the former headquarters of the city’s cotton guild, this hotel has honoured its origins. As well as original features and antique furniture, you’ll encounter rooms with names like ‘Taffeta’ and ‘Damask’. The Batuar restaurant serves updated Catalan dishes all day long, and also doubles as the breakfast room (you can take breakfast out on the terrace if the weather is good). The cocktail bar sits within the dining room, but if you’re not eating, the loveliest place to drink is the library, still stacked high with original books.

The English country house style here has been magicked from nothing, yet feels as classy and worn-in as a well-loved pair of brogues. The pale olive-coloured panelling will have you checking for secret passageways, and the rotary porcelain light switches have something of Downton about them, as do the thickly upholstered curtains and solid antique chests. On the rooftop terrace, the air is redolent with the scent of herbs and fragrant Mediterranean shrubs. The view from here, over the Port Vell and out to sea, is quite spectacular.

Decked out like an affairsy Mayfair club, with dim lighting, a blaze in the hearth and an adults-only, ‘no photos’ policy, the Wittmore feels incredibly private. Its location at the end of a dark and tiny alleyway simply adds to the wow factor as you walk into the baronial dining room where a log fire blazes and Sinatra and Dean Martin play on an endless loop. The bar is the main draw of the hotel, and its crackling fire could not be cosier in winter (though the patio is also a highlight in summer). You can also get a drink up on the roof terrace, year-round.

A delightful little hotel with only 22 rooms housed in a 17th-century mansion. What it lacks in facilities it makes up for in style and location – just next to the cathedral, it could not be more central. Its terrace on an atmospheric little square and its leafy rooftop bar are extra pluses. The hotel was once known for its boutiquey bold palette, love of crushed velvet and large, splashy artworks – but has in recent years gone for a more neutral feel, with soft cream and grey fabrics, and black-and-white photos on the walls.

The bijou Hotel Bagués was once the showroom for a jewellery company. A heady miscellany of styles and materials fuses leopard skin and ebony, rosewood and gold plate, Venetian glass and wenge wood. The overall effect is exotic, ritzy, and curiously cosy. It sits on La Rambla, a tomato’s toss from the Boqueria food market and just down from the transport fulcrum of Plaça Catalunya, but after a day’s sightseeing guests can retreat from the bustle to the hotel’s rooftop pool or book an in-room massage.

Sunny, friendly and supremely comfortable, The Serras is one of a new breed of stylish and unstuffy five-stars changing the face of the Barcelona hotel scene. A relatively sombre design by renowned designer Eva Martínez is never less than tasteful, with a white-and-chocolate theme in the bedrooms, nods to traditional Barcelona tiling on the oversized headboards, and crushed velvet in ochre and grey in the common areas. Its decked rooftop bar and pool area, with views across the port, is worth a visit even for non-guests, as is its restaurant.

A palimpsest of Barcelona historical architecture, the Mercer is housed in a mostly medieval building built on to a section of the city’s Roman wall, and includes a defence tower from that era. Its bare walls and ancient lintels are visible in many of the rooms, and the colour palette is sympathetic to the cream-coloured stone. There is a lovely decked rooftop, surrounded by aromatic plants and wild flowers, with a small plunge pool and – in summertime – a bar. Most rooms are set around a quiet breakfast patio, redolent with orange blossom and jasmine, while others face a vertical garden.

The Duquesa was famously the city’s last bastion of chintz, but refits have updated its look, while retaining its classical lines and old-world feel. The main part of the building dates from the 16th century, extended and remodelled in a neoclassical style in 1850. Today, its crowning glory is the rooftop terrace, with its navy blue-tiled plunge pools, cocktail bar and restaurant overlooking the yachts of the Port Vell. The rooms are a nice size, easy on the eye with tones of stone and chocolate, and wallpapered panels in different styles.

This really is a breathtakingly elegant little hideaway, with Deco ornaments, tufted velvet chairs, marble tables, Rococo mirrors and shimmering chandeliers placed along cream-coloured corridors. Interiors give the illusion of natural light where there is none, and careful attention is paid to the detail. Rooms have all the typical features of the period – high ceilings, tall windows, decorative cornicing and ceiling roses, and patterned hydraulic floor tiles. Five rooms have a balcony – that with the best view is number seven, which looks out over the 18th-century seminary building on Carrer de Balmes.

This part of the Eixample used to be a bit of a dead zone, but recently a sprinkling of hipster cafés and bistros has made it a much more interesting place to be. This hotel is set in a 19th-century former hospital, which nowadays sports a Meatpacking District loft look thanks to a heady mix of bare bricks, deeply grained zebrano wood, snakeskin wall panels and tan leather sofas, with pieces of ancient Asian sculpture dotted around. There is a small pool on the rooftop, and also a couple of semi-private plunge pools, each shared by three or four rooms.