Hotel Review: Palacio Duhau – Park Hyatt Buenos Aires

I just completed my two night stay at the Park Hyatt in Buenos Aires and it was spectacular, I’ve never stayed at a more luxurious hotel with so much culture and history!

Overall Property:

This hotel is beautiful and grand and nothing like I’ve ever seen before. There are actually two sections to the hotel, the grand house and the new section. The grand house is the original mansion on the property. Then the Duhau family purchased the property and turned it to a hotel. The grand house has all the suites and two of the restaurants. It was a little smaller than I expected but they use the space incredibly well and even built underground which added a lot more room. The new section has the guest rooms, and where I stayed.

Luckily, there is a garden separating the two, or you can take the underground tennel with the art gallery and spa.

Everything is both the old and new sections are grand and luxurious. But the old section has beautiful character and just an overall feel of wealth. The new section is just a nice, modern hotel.

Room:

Since I used my points I was staying in a standard guest room. It was beautiful and very high end, it took me a while to figure out how to turn on the lights. They are very clean and modern and I liked the style of the room a lot.

My one complaint is that the bed was really hard and uncomfortable.

Restaurants:

Los Salones del Piano Nobile was the first restaurant that I ate at, for lunch, and it was beautiful. It’s set in the old house so it looks beautiful and grand with amazing crown molding. The wait staff was really nice and accommodating for my inability to speak Spanish 🙂 I got the chicken and mussels and it was really good, but the portion of chicken was way too much. But for the cost of like $7 USD it was a great price. And the bread was amazing, it’s rare that I find a restaurant that can do a French baguette correctly.

I forgot what this was, it was the complementary appetizer. It was amazing and I could have eaten this all night!

Oysters with a green bean pure with pickled onions (it was amazing)

(Trout with pears)

Duhau Restaurante & Vinoteca is the fancy restaurant at the hotel and, flavor wise, it’s the best. They do an amazing job with fish and they pare it with really unique flavors and it’s truly amazing.

Gioia Restauranta & Terraza is the only restaurant in the new section of the hotel. I ate here for lunch and it was amazing. The staff was really nice. The bread wasn’t as good as the Los Salones restaurant but it was still good. The food was amazing, I got the wild boar ravioli and it was great, I could tell that the ravioli was hand made and not frozen. The windows are also spectacular and you can see a full view of the gardens and the main house.

Spa:

I’m a huge spa person and I love to go anytime I can, and everytime I travel. That being said, I’m also a little high maintenance and my tolerance for spas is pretty low, and a little unfair. In my opinion, the spa at this hotel is only subpar. My first issue is that it’s attached, and apart of, the fitness center. My issue with this is that, I’m the dressing room/communal area you have sweaty people mixed with people thing to relax at the spa, and it’s just awkward. My next issue is that they have you wait for your massage in the middle of the checkin room, so you’re waiting, naked and in your robe, while other people are walking in and out of the fitness room. Which, again, is awkward.

All in all, the spa is very relaxing and beautiful and the atmosphere is amazing. But, I’ve had better.

Customer Service:

Since this is a luxury brand property, the customer service was everything that I expected it to be, very attentive, respectful, and helpful.

One weird thing that did happen after I stayed there: I charge everything to the room, so I can get points, so at the end of my stay I had to go over all my charges with concierge and everything was correct. Then I got an email like 3 days later that said Hyatt was charging me an extra $30 USD for mini bar charges of like soda and snacks and alcohol. Trust be told, this was most definitely not me! I don’t drink soda and I know the highly inflated prices of the mini bar so I actually don’t take them. I did call and they said they would remove the charges but it’s been 7 days and it’s still showing up on my credit card. So just make sure you check your bill and then monitor your credit card and email!

Would I stay here again? Honestly, no. Recoleta is beautiful and a great area to stay in if you ever plan to come to Buenos Aires. But the hotel is only ‘okay’ so if you’re looking for a more ‘grand’ experience, which I was, then I would request either the Four Seasons or the Palace Hotel.