Madeira Island Is Going Glam
Tarmac meet-and-greets. Exclusive airport lounges behind well-marked doors. Rolls-Royce transfers. Velvet ropes. These luxuries almost feel like something out of time, given the current obsession with discretion. But that’s what makes Madeira’s new Reserve hotel refreshing—it’s not afraid to be a place for people who want to flaunt their VIP status.
Rather, it leans into that attention-seeking, starting with its perch atop the Savoy Palace, a plant-covered behemoth of a hotel that dominates the cityscape of Funchal, the island’s capital. It shows off its hotel-within-the-hotel concept, with a separate entrance, top-hatted doormen and a guests-only elevator—the only one in the building to have a bench. The local press excitedly reported that Madeira’s most famous son, Cristiano Ronaldo, rang in 2024 watching the New Year’s fireworks from the rooftop.
And while most guests aren’t anywhere near that notable, the hotel staff does its best to make them feel like they are. The website’s landing page promises that clients “will be accompanied by true luxury gatekeepers ready to make you feel like the most relevant person in the world.”
Perhaps that’s excessive. But it’s undeniably convenient. Guests have access to a dedicated concierge—always at the ready on WhatsApp and good at learning every guest’s name—who does usual things like managing spa appointments and restaurant reservations and quickly answers less usual ones, like looking up the price of a postcard stamp or the points of sale and designer of the groovy ceramic fruit on display in the guests-only lounge, the Jacarandá Club.
That would be Madeira native Nina Andrade Silva, who designed the Savoy Palace, which opened five years ago. She’s known for going all-in on wow factor designs, including the lace-inspired railings all over the hotel and the 33-foot-high lobby chandelier made of some four miles of metal chain.
Her signature is still welcomely evident in the public areas of the main hotel, including the enormous, glittering outdoor pool at street level, and the forest-inspired spa, which at 33,000 square feet, is one of the largest in Europe. But to give the Reserve its own identity when they carved it out from the Savoy Palace, the owners commissioned local firm RH+ Arquitectos (who also worked on the main hotel that opened five years ago) to give the space a refresh.
The 40 rooms of the Reserve—on the top floors of what was previously a 349-room hotel—all have ocean views and an island-inspired color palette: serene shades of blue, brown, gray and green. There’s abundant light and space inside and another living area outdoors, sometimes with a private plunge pool.
Along with those, the rooms over the Reserve share a quiet solarium, jetted tub and infinity-edge pool 17 floors above the everything of Funchal. The facilities are a mirror image of those that are shared by the Savoy Palace’s other 300 rooms on the opposite end of the rooftop, but of course with far fewer people.
The Reserve also has a second guests-only restaurant (besides the complementary a la carte breakfast and all-day dining menu at the Jacarandá Club). Nikkei is an Asian fusion project from noted sushiman Miguel Bértolo, who consulted with the hotel to develop a menu of Japanese dishes infused with flavors of Peru.
As is fitting for a hotel designed for VIPs, the dishes have their share of flourishes like a Wagyu beef starter with nitsuke egg yolk, truffle and ponzu sauce over parrotfish sashimi, and sumptuous scarlet prawns served over rice as donburi. And from its 16th-floor perch, it has dizzying views over the vertiginous landscape of Funchal and the hills beyond. It’s a place to take pleasure in being above it all.
