Detailed Review
A small palace from the 19th century, situated in a residential area and exclusively and centrally located in the cultural business centre of Madrid, Hotel Orfila serves as a role model for a new concept of hotel service in the capital of Spain.
This emblematic building was constructed in 1886 as a family home for the high bourgeois. In the 1920´s, due to the strong literary and theatrical interest of the family, a theater was set up in the small palace which brought fame to the theatre throughout Madrid.
In the 1990´s, the Orfila was transformed into a hotel that respected the stately air of the last century in it´s decor, while providing all the features of a luxury hotel.
Press Quotes
"Located in a quiet residential area and surrounded by stately residences within minutes of the city centre, this 19th-century palace has been converted into a hotel and refurbished to a high standard. Each bedroom is individually decorated with antique pieces and equipped with hydro-massage baths. Guests can savour haute cuisine in the small restaurant, which opens onto a terrace and pretty garden, whilst the cocktails served in the intimate bar are reputed to be amongst the best in Madrid. Guests can enjoy the facilities of a nearby fitness centre with indoor pool." Conde Nast Traveler
"NB-A Relais & Chateaux property close to the Hotel Santo Mauro on the charming narrow Calle de Orfila, converted from a private house with a small paved garden. It’s less stylish and individual than Santo Mauro, but its 32 rooms have some charm and are quiet enough to ensure a good night’s sleep. The service is attentive and personal, but there’s nothing truly exceptional about it." NB Review
Independent Reviews
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"Small jewel-like Madrid townhouse hotel, quiet and discreet"
Hotel Orfila
By Jamie Dunford Wood
Small palace/town house tastefully converted into a small ’boutique’ hotel in the 1990s. It has basic amenities and a small staff, but the small reception area is stuffed with real antiques, chipped by age, with paint-effect marblised walls and colourful flower arrangements. At the rear there is a small restaurant giving onto a smaller walled in garden. There are just 33 rooms and suites, some facing the garden with traditional Spanish square bay windows, so with the drapes drawn back they are bright. The decor throughout the hotel is in two styles, and there is a difference of size between grades. The whole place feels clean and efficient and above all quiet. Striped pale yellow walls in the corridors match yellow carpeting, dirty in places but lived in and engendering a sense of total comfort. The standard and superior rooms are subdued, in shades of yellow or sage green colourways, with the woodwork picked out in darker tones, alongside soft red/pink or green fabrics, fabric bedheads, ceiling to floor curtains, good repro antiques, little wall lights and, in the small bathrooms, twin sinks. The pink/pale yellow combination is brightest and works best. The effect is fairly neutral and discreet, but without veering to the corporate. The 8 superior rooms have little seating areas while 4 of the 5 suites are more elegant with empire furnishings, real antiques and rich, swagged curtains over tall, double door windows. The garret suite is less elegant. The top, 5th floor rooms have sloped ceilings in the eaves. The quiet leafy streets of this embassy district are like a morgue in mid-afternoon.
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