Best Put to the Test

Travel & Leisure writer sniffs out the best luxury retreats in NZ – a country where “everyone is a hotelier, or so it can sometimes seem.” After testing the waters at Eagle’s Nest (Russell), Otahuna Lodge (Christchurch), Azur (Queenstown), the Glasshouse (Waiheke), and Delamore Lodge (Waiheke), Azur emerges as the clear favourite. “[Hidden] improbably at the end of the street in a blah Queenstown subdivision was…my breakthrough NZ hotel. Azur is nine 800-square-foot guest rooms in nine freestanding villas on a steep cliff opposite a Tolkien landscape of mountains and water. Its managers, part-owners, and creators, Anthony Ross and Nejat Sarp, are very sharp blades.”