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More than half a century after it opened, the Wellington is still extremely graceful, with chandeliers, marble and murals, and groups of guests in formal evening wear milling about the lobby. Polite staff are on hand to cater to your every need. The hotel is just a stone's throw from the city's most expensive shopping area, Salamanca, and has a summer pool with terrace – ideal for relaxing after all that retail therapy. Rooms vary in size and are decorated in a conservative but classic style, and the hotel's main restaurant, Goizeko, serves Basque dishes in elegant surroundings.

Get exclusive and luxury treatment at Eurostars Madrid Tower. The hotel spans the first 31 floors of the imposing SyV Tower and offers views across the city and to the mountains beyond from the rooms, the spa, the Volvoreta restaurant and many of the meeting rooms. Cush rooms are kitted out in luxurious walnut furniture, and they all come with a pillow menu – a pillow menu! Head to the spa to work out, or better yet, to get a massage or other relaxing or beautifying body treatments, and when you want top-notch Mediterranean cusine, get to Volvoreta on the 30th floor: the views make for the perfect digestif.

Near Paseo de la Castellana, bordering the Salamanca district, stands the Miguel Ángel hotel, with a total of 267 fully equipped guest rooms and a variety of five-star amenities. Its elegant facilities, spa service and fitness centre, along with world-class dining and attentive staff offer guests a more than comfortable stay.

The Silken Puerta América will not be to all tastes, but it's a wonderland for design buffs. Each of its 12 floors and public spaces is designed by an all-star cast of architects, among them Norman Foster, Richard Gluckman, Marc Jewson and Ron Arad. Guests can select the floor of their choice on arrival, though the most popular tend to be Zaha Hadid's rooms (which look like they're sculpted from snowdrifts) and Arata Isozaki's studies in Japanese minimalism. The building itself (along with the pool and gym) was designed by Jean Nouvel.

The Room Mate hotel chain brings central and reasonably priced accommodations with original decor to Madrid. Meet Room Mate Alicia, a boutique design hotel set in an industrial building from the early 20th century. Interior designer Pascua Ortega is responsible for Alicia's 45 funky rooms done up in light wood with pops of colour in all the right places. Whether you choose a standard room or a suite with two levels and a private terrace, you can get stellar views from the wall-size windows overlooking the square. You're even provided with portable WiFi so you can stay connected when you're out exploring. Need extra time in the morning? The breakfast buffet is open until noon.

If you want classy, design boutique Dear Hotel wants to give it to you. Cross the threshold of the neoclassical building into an interior design by award-winning Tarruella Trenchs Studio that combines original elements with contemporary and cosmopolitan touches. Your room is your soundproofed luxury cocoon when you want to relax at the end of a long day of discovering Madrid. Decorated in natural, warm textures, every room looks onto the emblematic Gran Vía or Plaza de España. Be sure to get up to the rooftop terrace for spectacular panoramic views and to take a dip in the Sky Pool when the weather permits.

Madrid's famous Art Triangle, formed by the Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Reina Sofía museums, is also home to the Westin Palace. Unlike other hotels in Madrid, this Marriott-owned affair didn't start as a royal home or a nunnery that was later converted into accommodations, but instead it was commissioned by King Alfonso XIII in 1912 as a hotel so he could receive VIP visitors to the city. Today you can have breakfast or cocktails under the hotel's famed stained-glass dome, admiring the same beauty as celebrities did before you, among them the likes of Picasso, Dalí, Einstein and Madame Curie.

This small mansion in a tranquil residential area has been transformed into a quietly elegant five-star hotel. Built in the 1880s as a private home for an artistic family, the Orfila also housed a theatre and a literary salon during the 1920s. Thankfully, the hotel has held on to its 19th-century decor, not to mention its façade, carriage entrance and dramatic main stairway. The bedrooms are wonderfully quiet, and one of the four suites is intimately tucked away in the attic. The elegant restaurant looks on to the lovely garden patio, and guests take tea in the lobby in the afternoon.

Directly opposite the Reina Sofía Museum – home to Picasso’s anti-war masterpiece ‘Guernica’ – the Hard Rock group has magicked up a beautiful, laidback hotel (and on the site of a former car park, no less). The huge hanging guitar in the lobby, the mural inspired by the post-Franco La Movida countercultural movement behind the bar, the sculpture inspired by Velasquez’s ‘Las Meninas’: the overall feel is that of an art gallery, perhaps one curated by Pedro Almodovár. The rooms are slick, too, and pretty well priced. Don’t miss the brunch served in a guitar case.

Open the curtains and it smacks you right in the face. The Madrid Opera, right there, looming high like the beacon of high culture that it is. At Ocean Drive, which opened in March 2022, you’re in the ideal spot both to check out a show – and to explore the rest of the Spanish capital’s treasures while you’re there. The rooms are sleek, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering incredible views over the plaza below. The prices, too, are very decent (from £130 per night). But the best thing? One of the city’s best new restaurants, Mar Mía, can be found on the ground floor. Come for an education in Spanish seafood.