Luxury feature
Luxury in Belgrade: grand hotels, river views and a new skyline
Belgrade has always loved the good life: long dinners, beautiful rooms and nights that run until dawn. Today the city’s classic grand hotels and old-town dining rooms sit alongside a gleaming new skyline on the Sava, and luxury here feels both historic and brand new.
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The grand hotels
Belgrade’s love affair with grand hotels goes back to the beginning of the 20th century. Hotel Moskva, opened on Terazije in 1908, is still one of the city’s best-loved landmarks, and its café is famous for its cakes. In Savamala, the Bristol, built in 1912, has been carefully restored and reopened as The Bristol Belgrade, and the Metropol Palace beside Tašmajdan Park, a modernist landmark opened in 1957, is now part of Marriott’s Luxury Collection, with a spa and the rooftop restaurant The Twenty Two.
Dining with history
Some of the city’s finest dining rooms are full of stories. Salon 1905 serves ambitious modern cooking in the marble-and-gilt Geozavod building of 1905, and Klub Književnika, the Writers’ Club, has been a Belgrade institution since 1946. On the old-town ridge above the Sava, Langouste holds a MICHELIN star, and its tasting menus come with wide views over the river to New Belgrade.
Knez Mihailova and the old town
Knez Mihailova, the pedestrian street that runs from Republic Square to Kalemegdan, is lined with elegant 19th-century buildings and has always been the place to see and be seen. Nearby, on Studentski trg, Square Nine, designed by the Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld, brought a new kind of quiet, design-led luxury to the old town, with Ebisu, its rooftop Japanese restaurant, looking out over the rooftops.
The new skyline on the Sava
The most dramatic change has come on the banks of the Sava. At the heart of the Belgrade Waterfront rises the Belgrade Tower, home to The St. Regis Belgrade, its spa and, on the 41st floor, the Belgrade 360 Deck, with views over both rivers, the old town and New Belgrade. Next door, the Galerija shopping centre brings together designer labels, fine watches and jewellery, and the riverside promenade and marina are perfect for an evening stroll.
Rivers and mountains
Luxury in Belgrade also means getting away. In summer, a Danube cruise from Belgrade to the Iron Gates gorge passes fortresses and vineyards, and in winter the smart crowd heads south to the ski slopes of Kopaonik and the pine forests of Zlatibor, where spa hotels and chalets make the mountains a second home.
Our advice: Belgrade dresses up in the evening, so pack something smart for dinner. Book the best restaurants and rooftop tables ahead, especially from Thursday to Saturday, and do as the locals do: dine late, linger long, and let the night unfold.
