A globe-trotting roundup of the season’s most enticing openings, exhibitions, hotels, and tastemakers across Industry’s favorite cities.
Baden-Baden
BY TIA KIM
Good as New
For more than 150 years, Friedrichsbad has offered one of Europe’s most extraordinary wellness experiences, heralded as the most modern bathhouse in Europe when it opened in 1877. The grand Renaissance-style bathhouse combines ancient Roman bathing traditions with Irish hot-air therapy in a meticulously choreographed 17-step ritual designed to cleanse, relax, and restore. Beneath soaring domes, marble colonnades, and ornate frescoes, guests soak up the splendor of thermal pools, steam baths, and warming chambers fed by the same mineral-rich waters that first attracted the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago. (You can even check out preserved Roman bath ruins in the Museum of Ancient Bathing Culture.) The experience culminates in a luxurious soap-and-brush massage, leaving spa-goers blissfully relaxed and silky smooth.
Lady Luck
Few gaming halls can rival the unbridled elegance and history of Casino Baden-Baden, once described by the 20th century film icon Marlene Dietrich as “the most beautiful casino in the world.” Housed within the neoclassical Kurhaus, a grand 19th-century pleasure palace at the edge of the Black Forest, the casino has been welcoming aristocrats, artists, royals, and high rollers for nearly two centuries. The gaming salons were inspired by French royal palaces and Belle Époque splendor, featuring crystal chandeliers, gilded moldings, frescoed ceilings, marble columns, rich red textiles, and ornate gold-leaf detailing. The Grill, its signature restaurant, is equally ornate, with a sushi- and steak-forward menu that highlights A5 Wagyu, 28-day dry-aged tenderloin, and bluefin tuna.
casino-baden-baden.de
Soak Up the Swank
Caracalla Spa offers a more contemporary take on Baden-Baden’s legendary thermal waters. Opened in 1985 atop the ruins of ancient Roman baths, the sprawling 53,000-square-foot wellness complex combines sleek architecture, expansive glass-domed spaces, and modern spa amenities with the Black Forest’s famed springs. The experience centers around a series of indoor and outdoor thermal pools fed by Baden-Baden’s natural springs, where warm waters, bubbling whirlpools, massage jets, and swim-through passages encourage hours of leisurely soaking. Beyond the pools, visitors can explore an extensive sauna landscape featuring multiple indoor and outdoor saunas, steam baths, aromatherapy experiences, hot-and-cold grottoes, brine inhalation rooms, and relaxation areas overlooking the palace gardens.
caracalla.eu
Hide & Feast
The Michelin-starred Maltes Hidden Kitchen is unlike any other culinary experience in town. By day, the coffee house serves specialty brews, teas, and pastries along a charming pedestrian street, but as sunset approaches, a concealed sliding wall reveals the restaurant’s namesake “hidden kitchen,” transforming the space into an intimate fine-dining spectacular led by chef-owner Malte Kuhn. Tastings are offered in three, four, five, or six courses, with optional wine pairings. Diners journey through delicate renditions of wild cauliflower, sea bass, and lamb fillet followed by creamy Saint-Félicien cheese and white chocolate-blanketed strawberries for dessert.
exquisiteconcepts.com/maltes-hidden-kitchen
Grand Rising
For nearly 2,000 years, Baden-Baden has been luring travelers to its mineral-rich thermal waters, dating back to the first century AD when Roman nobility and soldiers built sophisticated bathhouses to harness the healing properties of the natural springs. This grande dame, set in the leafy Lichtentaler Allee park, has been a landmark of the popular spa town since the mid-1800s, and today it’s the flagship property and birthplace for Oetker Hotels. After a sweeping two-year renovation, the Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa reopened last year with modernized facilities and a fresh new design while honoring its storied Beaux-Arts legacy. The spa is the centerpiece, housed in a separate five-story complex with multiple saunas, steam rooms, mosaic showers, a hammam, and 15 treatment suites, plus a stunning indoor pool.
oetkerhotels.com/hotels/brenners-park-hotel-spa
