Four Seasons Hotel Mexico City

Paseo de la Reforma runs past the gates of Chapultepec in a wall of glass towers, and then there is a gap: a stone and stucco building only eight floors high, with a porte-cochère and a flight of steps. The Four Seasons Hotel Mexico City, at Reforma 500, was built in the early 1990s to look as though it had always been there, and the trick has worked for thirty years.

History

The hotel opened in 1994, the first Four Seasons in Latin America, on a plot in Colonia Juárez between the financial district and Chapultepec Park. The developers chose a form that the city had largely stopped building: a hacienda plan with the rooms turned inward on to a garden rather than outward on to the traffic. A full renovation of the rooms, the bar and the restaurant was completed in 2016 and 2017, and the courtyard was replanted at the same time.

Architecture and design

The building is a hollow square. From the lobby a pair of arcades leads into the courtyard, which is the heart of the place: a garden of fountains, stone paths, jacaranda and palms, with the rooms stacked around it on all four sides. Most of the public rooms open on to the arcades, so that lunch, a drink or a meeting takes place within sight of the trees. The style is colonial revival, with tiled floors, wrought iron and a palette of ochre and stone, and it reads as Mexican rather than as a chain template.

Rooms and suites

There are about 240 rooms and suites. Rooms face the courtyard or Reforma, and the courtyard side is the one to ask for; it is silent at night in a way that is rare in the city. The 2017 renovation brought in local design pieces, crafts from Oaxaca and Michoacán, and large marble bathrooms. The top-floor suites have terraces over the garden.

Dining

Fifty Mils, the bar off the courtyard, has been listed among the World's 50 Best Bars several times and is the reason many locals come to the hotel; the name is the size of a standard pour, and the cocktails draw on Mexican spirits and ingredients. Zanaya is the restaurant, with a kitchen anchored on the seafood cooking of the Pacific coast, served under the arcades and in the garden. There is also a café and a wine room that can be booked for private dinners.

Wellness

The spa occupies a wing on the ground floor with treatment rooms, a steam room and a fitness centre. There is an outdoor heated pool in the garden, sheltered by the building on all sides.

Weddings and events

The courtyard is the hotel's main asset for events, and weddings are held in it with the trees lit at night. Inside, the hotel has a ballroom and a series of smaller function rooms used for board meetings and press launches; the proximity of the embassies and the Reforma corporate towers keeps them busy. Capacities are not given here.

Location

Reforma 500 is on the stretch of the avenue between the Ángel de la Independencia and the entrance to Chapultepec Park, in Colonia Juárez. The Museo Nacional de Antropología and the castle in Chapultepec are within walking distance. The Zona Rosa, the Roma and Condesa neighbourhoods and Polanco are each a short drive. Mexico City International Airport is around 40 minutes away by car outside the rush hours, and Sevilla metro station is close by. Among the luxury hotels in Mexico City it is the only one organised around a garden rather than a view.