Four Seasons Hotel Baku

Four Seasons chose its Baku site shrewdly: directly on Neftchilar Avenue, the grand boulevard that runs along the Caspian, with the UNESCO-listed walls of the Old City beginning practically at the door. The building itself, though completed in 2012, was designed in a full-blooded Beaux-Arts manner of pale stone, mansard roofs and wrought-iron balconies, and it sits convincingly among the oil-boom mansions of the early twentieth century that give central Baku its character.

Inside, the hotel is the most polished operation in the Caucasus. Rooms are classically dressed in creams and golds with marble bathrooms, and the best of them look across the boulevard to the Caspian or towards Maiden Tower and the minarets of Icherisheher. Service runs at a level the region otherwise rarely reaches, and the rooftop pool—glassed-in, under a conservatory dome—delivers one of the city's finest views.

Dining spans Italian at Zafferano, with terraces towards the sea, and a handsome bar for Azerbaijani teas and evening cocktails. The spa is extensive, with a proper thermal circuit. From the front door, the carpet museum, the boulevard promenade and the lanes of the Old City are all on foot; the Flame Towers glow on the ridge above. As a base for Baku, nothing else combines position and polish so completely.