The Best Hotels in Sicily, From a 17th-Century Former Monastery to an Island Villa
Caught in the crosshairs of civilizations for centuries, thanks to its vulnerable geography, Sicily enjoys an unusually complex cultural mosaic for such a small, ravishing island and some of the best hotels in the Med. Yet among its vast array of food, art, religion, and architecture lies a fiercely unified identity—one that separates it from mainland Italy and makes it endlessly alluring. Sicily’s best hotels reflect this curious blend of unity and variance—each whispering a different tale of conquest and confrontation, all honoring their extraordinary natural surroundings and offering sweet breakfast feasts of cannoli, granita, and brioche con tuppu.
From 18th-century palaces salvaged from Palermo’s crumbling splendor to porous, time-warp rooms inhaling the Aeolians’ salty Tyrrhenian air, here are the best hotels in Sicily.
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Courtesy BelmondhotelBelmond Grand Hotel Timeo
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Gold List 2018 
Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021This Sicilian grande dame is the high-octane, Taormina stay of Slim Aarons reverie—where pool views look good from all angles and a pianist (and negronis) cajole couples to dance on the balcony against a menacing backdrop of Mount Etna. Opulent marble bathrooms and silky, wallpapered rooms spill onto terraces doused in golden sunlight—where elaborate breakfasts of granita brioche, tea regalia, and sugar-dusted pastries sweeten the view. Following a long siesta under one of the beach cabanas of sister hotel, Belmond Villa Sant’Andrea, guests fling on their finery for Otto Geleng’s foodie theatre. And it’s quite a performance: flickering oil lamps trace swirls of lace along the table and animate plates of seafood that would make an artist blush, perhaps even the restaurant’s namesake German painter. While a magnificent Greek amphitheater and Amalfi-style Taormina is right on the hotel’s doorstep, Belmond Grand Hotel Timeo’s preened, tiered gardens and elegant poolside scene makes for a relieving retreat.
Alfio GarozzoMonaci delle Terre Nere
Agriturismo trailblazer, Monaci Delle Terre Nere, remains one of Sicily’s smartest and most stylish country hotels. The faded grandeur of its main house (a carefully renovated 17th-century monastery) is as magnetic as Etna herself, whose fertile slopes are combed with olive groves, apricot trees, herb gardens, and vines. The volcano’s mystic presence looms over a scatter of 27 design dens, renovated old-meets-new barns, and villas which blink out over a bucolic scene of rolling hills that greet the sea. This go-slow, soul-nourishing estate leverages its 60 acres of organic harvest for its destination restaurant, Locanda Nerello, where scabbardfish ragout, ancient courgettes parmigiana, and various Italian classics allow the superb ingredients to take the lead.
Breakfasts are as equally thrilling—expect fresh, scrambled eggs sprinkled in wildflowers from the farm and black bee honey drizzled on homemade Sicilian bread using ancient grains. Afternoons heed the famously Sicilian Il Dolce Far Niente: drifting off to soft jazz and ice tinkling in glass of Sicilian gin by the volcanic pool, or leaning into Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s ‘The Leopard’ on a soft, cream sunlounger, with a glass of Etna red balancing precariously on the grass.
Dimora Delle Balze
An abandoned 19th-century castle just north of the baroque town of Noto seems an unusual birthday present—but following a scrupulous nine-year restoration project, Elena Lops now shares the joy, along with the discerning eye of interior designer Draga Obradovic. The estate’s masseria soul remains fully intact, its freckled grey walls and earthy, tiled rooms blending seamlessly into the surrounding prairie-like scrub and lush, rolling woodlands. Sun-dappled courtyards decorated with wrought iron day beds and large terra-cotta pots lead into pared-down pastel-hued bedrooms, more courtyards, and a light-filled dining room where local cheeses, meats, apricot pastries, and brioche spill across a farmhouse table for breakfast. This is savored on a weathered stone terrace, with views of Val di Noto’s gold and green haze framed by disfigured classical columns salvaged from the abandoned estate. Even the pool area seems to have seized upon the organic theme—where moonlight toys with the water’s tar-like ripples in the evening as diners drizzle focaccia generously with the estate’s own olive.
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Villa Igiea, a Rocco Forte HotelhotelVilla Igiea, a Rocco Forte Hotel
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Hot List 2022Palermo’s disheveled honey-hued maze laments its golden age of lavish operas, fabulous parties, and vast, aristocratic palazzos. One of them was Villa Igiea, a palm-framed, resplendent beauty built in 1900 for the wealthy Florrio family. Its Art Nouveau soul was recently stirred with Olga Polizzi and Paolo Moschino’s clever old-meets-new design dialogue. This new Rocco Forte chapter saw Villa Igiea’s chandelier-antique-frescoed good looks welcome modern furniture and elegantly pared back decorations with the same warmth as they once did Europe’s Beau Monde, from Sophia Loren to Queen Victoria. Its grand 2019 opening signaled Palermo’s wider renaissance, one of the same creative flavor that filled Athens' ancient bones a decade ago. One that is also manifest in the new authors’ contemporary rendition of classicism and commitment to locality, from the fritti and pasta ingredients to artworks nodding to the island’s striking natural beauty.
Hotel Signum
Just below Naples and above the scruffy Sicilian port of Milazzo lies a guarded Italian secret: a scattering of volcanic islets cast adrift in a sea too blue and too warm for the Mediterranean. Salina is one of them, a go-slow mass of lush, herb-covered slopes, and sun-soaked hills, drifting away from its volcanic neighbors. Clinging to the foot of one of its volcanoes and occupying the old, pretty bones of a fishing village, Hotel Signum lures in a smart, understated crowd. Dazzling, Mediterranean sunshine sieves through a wild tangle of lemon trees, honeysuckle, and jasmine, animating a nostalgic scene of chipped shutters, cast-iron furniture, and elaborate cocktails. Rooms recall an 18th-century novelist’s genteel bolthole with mahogany furniture decorating a simple, Sicilian tile canvas and cut-work white curtains swelling in the breeze. They share the same other-worldly views across the Tyrannian to Panarea and Stromboli’s coils of smoke as the terrace, where refined suppers of sea urchin with creamy mashed potato and breaded scabbardfish with tiger milk showcase the island’s land-and-sea bounty and the Signum owners’ daughter Martina Caruso's wild creativity (the youngest Italian chef to receive a Michelin star).
Zash Boutique Hotel and SpaZash Boutique Hotel and Spa
Wrapped in acres of labyrinthine citrus groves beneath looming Mount Etna, Zash Boutique Hotel & Spa was once the summer retreat for Catania’s nobility and now thrusts guests back to a time where nature called the shots, through a contemporary prism, as one of the best hotels in Sicily. Honoring its past life as a Palmento, the cool innards of the main house (a peachy, peeling vestige of grand Sicily) now pose as a smart, destination restaurant, below it, a dimly lit spa gurgles and steams, echoing the volcanic surroundings. Rhythms are docile, set by shifting fruit trees and occasionally interrupted by the rumble of the train (worth booking a room that doesn’t back onto the track). Lava stone slabs line the walls in Iraci Architetti’s photogenic Iconic Rooms and Poolside Villas, whose cubic, glass structures and sharp furniture greatly contrast the main house’s soft antiquity, and cleverly pull the clementine trees indoors. This is one of Sicily’s lesser-known hotels, a favorite with Italians wrapped in fluffy towels, oscillating between spa and pool (sliced into volcanic rock with contemporary finesse), before tucking into Guiseppe Raciti’s signature uovo poche croccante and soul-stirring pasta plates.
This gallery was originally published by Condé Nast Traveller UK.
