The Best Luxury Hotels in Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen: Spires, Canals, and Quiet Confidence

Copenhagen turns its old buildings into hotels more readily than almost any capital in Europe. A granary from 1787, a post office, a department store and a 1960s transformer station all take guests now, alongside a grand hotel that has held the same corner since the 18th century. The fourteen luxury hotels in Copenhagen below are grouped by design language instead of neighborhood, for travelers who choose a room by how the building looks and feels as much as by where it sits.

Getting in is simple. The M2 Metro line runs from the airport to Kongens Nytorv in under a quarter of an hour, which puts the harbor-side hotels within easy reach of a morning flight. Summer is the season to plan around. Several of the older buildings were never designed for air conditioning, and at least one eco-minded hotel below goes without it by choice, so travelers who sleep badly in heat should check before booking a July stay.

Copenhagen's Architecture and Design Language

Most of Copenhagen's luxury rooms sit inside buildings that were never meant to hold them. Jacobsen's tower opposite Tivoli was a hotel from day one, but many of the others started as warehouses, offices, a shipyard headquarters or a shop, and their old floor plans still decide where the bars, pools and best rooms ended up. Inside, the Danish preference for wood, wool and plain lines holds in most of them. Two hotels below ignore it completely, one with an indoor jungle and one with bare concrete.

The 14 Best Luxury Hotels in Copenhagen

🏛️ Historic & Landmark Architecture

These three occupy some of the most significant buildings in the city, from an 18th-century institution to the hotel that put Danish modernism on the map.

1. Hotel d'Angleterre

Location: Kongens Nytorv, central Copenhagen

The story begins in 1755, when Jean Marchal and Maria Coppy opened a restaurant in Copenhagen, and after a fire in 1795 the business settled on its current corner of Kongens Nytorv. The restaurant that carries Marchal's name holds a Michelin star for Nordic and French cooking. Balthazar, billed as Denmark's first champagne bar, sits under the same roof, and a pink pâtisserie, Maison d'Angleterre, handles the sweet end of the day. The Michelin Guide, which gives the hotel two Keys, says a recent renovation balances its "stately Victorian architecture" with understated Nordic design. Each of the 92 rooms and suites is decorated individually, with its own curated art. Below ground, the Amazing Space spa has an indoor pool and a fitness centre. Reserve a table at Marchal when booking the room, not after arrival. First-time visitors get the old city at the front door and dinner sorted downstairs.

Ideal for: Couples who want the city's grandest address and its history with it.

2. Villa Copenhagen

Location: Opposite Tivoli Gardens, beside Central Station

Heinrich Wenck designed this castle-like building in 1912 for the Central Post and Telegraph Office, and Petter Stordalen's Nordic Hotels & Resorts reopened it as a 390-room hotel in 2020. Universal Design Studio led a team that kept the old proportions and dressed the rooms in pale greens, greys and yellows. Over the courtyard, a domed grid of faceted glass turns the old yard into a bar and lounge. The 25-metre rooftop pool is heated with surplus warmth from the building's own cooling system. Dinner is at Kontrast, a brasserie, and the T37 bar handles cocktails. Rug, the in-house bakery, is the quickest breakfast before an early train from the station next door.

3. Radisson Collection Royal Hotel

Location: Beside Central Station and Tivoli Gardens

Arne Jacobsen designed the Royal Hotel down to its fittings when it opened in 1960, and the Michelin Guide calls it "often considered the world's first true designer hotel." The tower takes its cue from New York's Lever House. Jacobsen's Egg, Swan and Pot chairs still furnish the public spaces. Room 606 has been kept in its original 1960 form, and it is the one to book by number if the design history is the reason for the trip. The rest of the 262 rooms were fully renovated in 2018 and read as contemporary. Issei, the restaurant, serves Nikkei food, Japanese and Peruvian flavors inside a modernist shell.

🎨 Boutique Heritage

Smaller and warmer, these seven lean on vintage character and historic buildings, and most put the harbor or the lakes within a few minutes of the door.

4. Hotel Sanders

Location: 200 meters from Nyhavn, central Copenhagen

Alexander Kølpin was one of Denmark's leading ballet dancers before he opened Hotel Sanders, and he named half the hotel after the theatre. The cocktail bar, Tata, is named for the red curtain at the Royal Theatre that he once waited behind before going on, and it pours half-size cocktails alongside a house Paloma. Between 5pm and 6pm, a wine hour comes included, with bottles from the Kølpin family vineyards, each vintage named after one of his children. The 55 rooms, suites and a standalone residence are dressed in rattan and photographs, with natural materials picked so the rooms won't need redoing in a few years. Sanders Kitchen serves global dishes with a Danish accent. Breakfast is charged separately. Mr & Mrs Smith notes that the compact communal spaces are not accessible to guests with limited mobility, even though some rooms are adapted.

5. Hotel Skt. Annæ

Location: Near Nyhavn, in 17th-century baroque buildings

Smugglers and thieves once needed a password to get in here, according to Mr & Mrs Smith, back when the address was a den of iniquity. Now a row of adjoining townhouses on Sankt Annæ Plads holds 144 rooms, taking cues from the painter Vilhelm Hammershøi with light-grey walls and muted, meditative tones. Street art by Zusa hangs alongside. Benches made from weathered harbor timber fill the courtyards, indoors and out, and a roof terrace looks across the skyline. The Shrimp runs as an American-style diner with oysters and steaks, while The Club pours cocktails in old-school surroundings. There's no spa on site, though the hotel partners with Arndal Spa nearby. Families should book one of the three apartments, since the hotel offers little to keep children busy.

6. Hotel SP34

Location: Latin Quarter, central Copenhagen

"Friday nights are when this place comes alive," The Hotel Guru says of SP34, pointing to live DJ sets and free concerts that pull a local crowd into the Latin Quarter lobby. The 118 rooms keep to wood furniture and a contemporary Nordic look. For an hour each afternoon, starting at five, the lounge bar pours free wine. Two restaurants share the building, one for upscale burgers and one for small Mediterranean and Danish plates. A small private cinema can be booked for screenings, and the roof has a terrace of its own. Light sleepers who would rather skip the party should check the events calendar before booking a Friday. For a room with its own outdoor space, the Penthouse Suite has a private balcony over the city.

7. Admiral Hotel Copenhagen

Location: Waterfront, beside Amalienborg Palace

Grain, not guests, filled this building for most of its life. Engineering officer Ernst Peymann designed the two warehouses, commissioned in 1781 and finished in 1787, and after the Crown took them over they stored up to 30,000 barrels of grain. They were joined in 1885 and opened as a hotel in January 1978. The building sits on the waterfront between the mouth of Nyhavn and Amalienborg Palace, with the royal residence practically next door. Its 366 rooms make it one of the larger addresses on the harbor. Ask for a harbor-facing room when booking, since the water is the view worth having. SALT, the restaurant and bar, was designed by Conran & Partners. Architects Flemming Hertz and Ole Ramsgaard Thomsen handled the conversion.

8. Coco Hotel

Location: Vesterbro, near Central Station

Tasselled room keys and a tiny, creaking lift set the tone at Coco, a Vesterbro hotel that leans happily into the old-fashioned. Each of its five floors has its own color scheme, carried into the 88 rooms. A marble bar fronts the ground floor, lined with green dining chairs that the designers rescued from the basement. Breakfast moves out to the courtyard café in warm months and to Delphine, the sister restaurant, in winter. Suitcase points out that the rooms have no coffee machines, though coffee can be ordered up from room service. Guests get a discount across the Cofoco restaurant group, a useful perk in a neighborhood full of places to eat. The city centre is about ten minutes away on foot.

9. NH Collection Copenhagen

Location: Christianshavn waterfront

Palle Suenson designed this building between 1957 and 1962 as headquarters for the Burmeister & Wain shipyards, all pure forms, straight lines and flat roofs. NH Collection turned it into a 394-room hotel on Strandgade, on the Christianshavn waterfront, with the Opera and Nyhavn across the harbor. ROOF, the bar and lounge at the top, runs all year with indoor and outdoor seating and views over the copper spires at sunset. At nearly 400 rooms, it has less individual character than the boutique houses nearby. Drivers are better served here than at most central hotels, with valet parking for more than 100 cars and chargers for electric vehicles.

10. Hotel Kong Arthur

Location: Overlooking Copenhagen's city lakes

From five to six every evening, the lobby fills for cozy hour, a glass of wine, a draft beer or something non-alcoholic on the house. The hotel occupies 19th-century buildings by the city lakes and runs on an eco-minded philosophy that extends to going without air conditioning, with a Dyson fan in each room instead. Italian at La Rocca, Spanish small plates at Pintxos and Japanese at Sticks'n'Sushi all operate inside the building, along with the Thai-style Ni'mat spa. Breakfast leans New Nordic and covers vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free guests. Oyster found the gym small and cramped. The same review notes that courtyard-facing rooms can be noisy, so ask for a room on the street or lake side. There are 155 rooms in all.

🌿 Modern, Industrial & Nature-Immersive

These four break with the classic formula entirely, from a brutalist power station to a tropical pool room.

11. Locke Copenhagen

Location: Beside Central Station, city center

Locke opened in March 2026 inside two cylindrical towers in Postbyen, the former postal district rising beside Central Station. Grzywinski+Pons designed all 234 rooms, and the London studio A-nrd handled the public spaces. Vogue Scandinavia traces the palette, terracotta, chalky pinks and mossy greens, to the city's oxidised copper rooftops. Downstairs, LUQA serves Italian food. The 11th-floor cocktail bar has panoramic views and is open to anyone, not just guests, so reserve ahead for sunset. It is the youngest hotel in this guide by several months.

12. 1 Hotel Copenhagen

Location: Latin Quarter, in a former 1920s department store

Vilhelm Lauritzen designed the Daells Varehus department store that opened here in 1933, and from 2003 the building spent more than 20 years as Hotel Skt. Petri. It reopened in September 2025 as 1 Hotel Copenhagen, converted with minimal demolition. The new interiors run to oak, limestone and linen, with Dinesen wood panelling, Kvadrat textiles and a green wall more than three metres tall. A courtyard garden grows herbs and wildflowers for the kitchen. Fjora is run by Chantelle Nicholson, a chef with a Green Michelin Star, and PÆRE handles cocktails with live music and weekend DJs. The 252 rooms and 30 suites all welcome dogs. A Bamford Wellness Spa was scheduled to open in 2026, so confirm it's running before booking for it. Green credentials are the selling point, and comfort isn't what gets cut to pay for them.

Best for: Travelers who want green credentials without giving up comfort.

13. Boutique Hotel Herman K

Location: Near Nyhavn, in a former 1960s transformer station

Hans Christian Hansen designed this electrical transformer station in 1963, and its protected façade, a grid of horizontal metal blades, still faces the street. Inside, the lobby rises 12 metres between two steel doors that once divided the station into three cavernous zones, with cast concrete walls above the original terrazzo stairs. Only 31 rooms fill it. The bathroom sinks are custom ceramics by Kähler, the firm of the ceramicist Herman A. Kähler, who gave the hotel its name. Service skips the usual formality. "We don't have a doorman, I will open the door," general manager Lise Egenius told The Spaces. The two-storey penthouse has a private roof terrace of about 40 square metres and books up early. Roxie, the bistro, is run by the team behind the two-Michelin-star Kadeau.

Ideal for: Architecture lovers who want concrete over chintz.

14. Manon Les Suites

Location: Near the Copenhagen Lakes and Tivoli Gardens

Greenery spills over the indoor jungle pool at Manon Les Suites, the last thing most visitors expect to find in Copenhagen. The hotel belongs to the Guldsmeden group, and its 87 suites carry modern Balinese touches. Breakfast is an organic buffet. On the roof, Chapung serves Asian fusion dishes from head chef Nan Kanokwan Kortaisong, so book a table there for at least one evening. Guests must be 15 or older. For travelers who came for minimalist Scandinavian design, the jungle theme will feel like a different city.

Ideal for: A greener, more playful stay than the city's usual restraint.

Four Buildings Worth Booking

Best for a First Copenhagen Trip: Hotel d'Angleterre. A Michelin-starred dining room, a pool below street level and Kongens Nytorv at the door.

Best for Design History: Radisson Collection Royal Hotel. Room 606 is a Jacobsen time capsule, and the furniture he drew for the hotel is still in use.

Best Reinvented Building: Villa Copenhagen. A former telegraph office with a 25-metre pool on its roof.

Best for a Hygge Night: Hotel Kong Arthur. A lakeside lobby that fills for its free evening drink, and three kitchens to choose from afterward.

Read the Building First

Copenhagen's best hotels differ most in what their buildings were made to do. A granary, a post office and a transformer station each shape the rooms in ways no renovation fully erases.

Pick the building whose old job sounds most appealing, because in Copenhagen that is usually the room worth sleeping in.

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