Malta: The Out Of Office Collection

The Xara Palace

The Xara Palace was built in the 17th century as a residence for the noble Moscati Parisio family, and it’s the only hotel actually inside Mdina’s fortified walls, its own structure fused into the city’s bastions. The Zammit Tabona family bought the property in 1996 and spent three years restoring it using original architectural drawings from Malta’s government archives, reopening in 1999 with the palazzo’s noble-era character largely intact rather than modernized.

It remains deliberately small: seventeen rooms and suites, each individually furnished with antiques and original artwork rather than a repeated design template, some with private terraces, one with a spiral staircase leading up to a loft duplex. No cars are allowed inside Mdina’s walls, which means evenings here, once the day’s visitors have left, settle into the kind of quiet that gives the city its old nickname, the Silent City.

At the top of the building, the restaurant de Mondion looks out over Mdina’s rooftops and the countryside beyond, and has built a serious reputation of its own within Malta’s dining scene. The hotel itself holds a Michelin Key, the guide’s newer distinction for exceptional stays, and remains family-run: Justin Zammit Tabona, second generation of the family that bought the palace, still manages the wider collection today.

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Cugo Gran Macina Grand Harbour

The building housing Cugo Gran Macina was constructed in 1554 by the Knights of St. John as part of Senglea’s harbor fortifications, built specifically to hoist ship masts in and out of the water for repair, a function that survives in the hotel’s name: “Macina” refers to the crane once housed here. Over the centuries the structure also served as a semaphore signaling station and a naval law enforcement post, before standing largely unused for decades.

Its conversion into a hotel took 17 years to complete, working around strict preservation orders that meant no two rooms could be built to the same layout. It opened in 2018 with just 21 suites, some as large as 130 square meters, several with mezzanine sleeping areas and original limestone ceilings intact above modern interiors. The rooftop pool looks out over the Grand Harbour and the fortress walls of Senglea, Cospicua, and Vittoriosa, Malta’s Three Cities, with Valletta visible directly across the water.

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The Phoenicia Malta

The Phoenicia was conceived in 1935 by Lady Margaret Strickland, wife of Malta’s then prime minister, and designed by Scottish architect William Binnie, whose Art Deco design gave the building its distinctive chevron-shaped limestone facade. Construction was nearly complete when the Second World War stopped it entirely: the British requisitioned the unfinished building to house RAF personnel, and on April 27, 1942, an estimated 100 bombs fell on the hotel and its grounds during a single air raid. Work resumed once the war allowed, and the hotel finally opened in November 1947, becoming Malta’s first five-star hotel and the first on the island with a swimming pool.

Set just outside Valletta’s city gate on land that was once part of the city’s outer fortifications, the hotel keeps seven acres of gardens, a rarity within reach of the capital, leading down to the bastion walls and an infinity pool looking out over Marsamxett Harbour. Queen Elizabeth II is known to have danced in the Palm Court Lounge during Prince Philip’s naval posting on the island, one of many royal and diplomatic guests the hotel has hosted since it opened. The spa is built partly into the old bastion structure itself, with indoor pools, a sauna, and steam and salt rooms.

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The Rosselli AX Privilege

A restored 17th-century palazzo on Merchants Street, in the center of Valletta, Rosselli AX Privilege holds just 25 rooms and suites, kept intimate by design. Its restaurant, Under Grain, earned a Michelin star only months after opening in 2019, one of the first restaurants in Malta to receive one, and has held onto it for several years running since. A second, more casual restaurant within the hotel, Grain Street, has its own Michelin Bib Gourmand, while Over Grain, the rooftop bar, rounds out a dining lineup that’s unusually decorated for a hotel of this size.

Local and international art is displayed throughout the property, a nod to Valletta’s long-standing identity as an artistic center, one still visible in the galleries and studios that remain scattered through the city today.

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Iniala Valletta

Iniala Valletta occupies four side-by-side 17th-century townhouses on St. Barbara Bastion, at the top of Valletta, restored by Turkish design studio Autoban to keep the buildings’ original stone vaults, painted staircase, and cupola intact while layering in bold contemporary murals and furnishings, a deliberately maximalist take on heritage rather than a minimalist one. It’s consistently ranked the top luxury hotel in Malta, holding two Michelin Keys, a Forbes Five-Star rating, and Green Key eco certification alongside its design pedigree.

The real draw sits on the fourth floor: ION Harbour by Simon Rogan, Malta’s only two-Michelin-star restaurant, built entirely around Maltese produce and local foraging rather than imported ingredients, a genuinely rare thing to find on an island this size. Essensi Spa is tucked into the hotel’s old stone vaults below, with a heated pool, sauna, and steam room, and for those who want the harbor itself rather than just the view of it, the hotel’s 44-foot yacht is available for private charter.

With just 23 rooms and suites, several with private plunge pools and views straight across the Grand Harbour to the Three Cities, Iniala trades scale for intensity, arguably Malta’s most complete expression of old building, new design, and incredible food, all in one place.