Bangalore has a huge range of excellent top-quality hotels, of which our personal favorites are The Park.hotel for its contemporary über-slick styling and in-house nightlife, and the Taj West End Hotel for its heritage atmosphere (both reviewed here). However, you may want to compare online rates with the following round-up of the city's best hotels, which offer the same or similar top-end luxury and amenities. As you'll find elsewhere in Indian destinations frequented by foreigners, many of the lodgings in Bangalore quote their rates in dollars or euros. Not so however at charming Villa Pottipati (also reviewed here), the best-value deal in town.
ITC Hotel Windsor Sheraton & Towers (25 Windsor Square, Golf Course Rd.; tel. 080/2226-9898; fax 080/2226-4941; www.welcomgroup.com), popular with Bollywood's elite and high-profile businesspeople and politicians, retains the look and character of a neoclassical English country house; ask for a room in the Manor Block. The Oberoi (37/39 M.G. Rd.; tel. 080/2558-5858; www.oberoihotels.com; doubles from $550/£278) is another excellent hotel, with the usual high standards we have come to rely on from India's best hotel group. It's extremely picturesque, with balconies draped with blue blossoming creepers and set amid gardens with lovely views over the lawns and the swimming pool. Standard units are not quite as large or as elegant as those at the ITC Windsor Sheraton, but they're spacious enough and luxuriously decorated with floral fabrics and antique finishes; ask for a room on an upper floor for better views. But for over-the-top opulence, Leela Palace Kempinski -- judged by Forbes Magazine as one of the world's best new business hotels when it opened in 2001 and garnering CNN's Ultimate Service Award for 2 years in a row -- is the hands-down winner. A baroque rendition of contemporary Indo-Saracenic architecture, looming large in pale pink, it offers enormous "conservatory" rooms with private balconies and, along with all the modern conveniences, elegant four-poster beds, rococo gold-gilt lamps, and silk duvet covers. Deluxe rooms are also very spacious and styled in the same manner (23 Airport Rd.; tel. 080/2521-1234; www.theleela.com; doubles $470/£238 deluxe, $500/£253 conservatory [including breakfast]; suites range from $725/£367 to a whopping $3,500/£1,774 for the Maharaja suite). In the (comparatively) moderate price range, opt for the Taj-run Gateway Hotel on Residency Road; its best accommodations are the cheapest and recently refurbished "executive" guest rooms priced at $265 (£134). Ask for an even-numbered, pool-facing room on the fourth floor (tel. 080/6660-4545; fax 080/66614542, www.tajhotels.com).
Much cheaper and less luxe but perfectly serviceable, St. Mark's is a small, neat business hotel (tel. 080/2227-9090; www.stmarkshotel.com) with doubles from Rs 4,800 ($117/£59); alternatively, Ivory Towers (tel. 080/2558-9333; Rs 3,600/$88/£44) has 12 spotless suites with great views (ask for one with a balcony) and all amenities (including Wi-Fi). Its restaurant, Ebony, is reviewed below. Perched on the 12th and 13th floors of Barton Centre, gob-smack on busy M.G. Road, Ivory Towers is conveniently located if you want to be downtown.
