Ion City Hotel

If you think of sleek Nordic modernism when you conjure Iceland, you should. The country has embraced the look full-tilt, and it reaches its apex at Ion City Hotel. Starter rooms have footprints on the smaller side at 215 square feet, yet they feel enormous, thanks to everything-in-its-place efficiency, including reading lamps built into the wood wall headboards, custom closets that are part of the structure of the room, and love seats that perfectly suit their window nooks overlooking the cityscape. For a stay that feels like a splurge—hey, you’re in Iceland, celebrate!—book the Panorama Suite, lovable for its 806-square-foot floor plan, private sauna and a deep and Instagrammy soaking tub that peeps out on the bay. Oh, did we mention every room here has a comped mini bar?

An 18-room, party-ready respite with soundproof doors, cheeky design touches (yep, that’s an actual birch tree inside the lobby) and a stellar Lebanese restaurant.

Artless. As a member of Design Hotels, the hotel is chockablock with eye candy, from the bird's nest light fixture over the front desk to the Icelandic wool curtains.

You like to feel like a local, and Sumac, the Beirut-inspired restaurant here, buzzes with hip Icelandic young things. Don’t miss the date cake with coffee ice cream and licorice lava.

After your flight across the pond—well, to the middle of the pond—you feel like letting your hair down. In the lobby, a hanging chair swaddled in sheep’s wool beckons. You feel, instantly, like a kid again.

Sumac: Icelandic pristine seasonal ingredients subtly immersed in exotic spices – adding luscious and inspiring influences from Lebanon and Morocco. An eclectically seductive culinary affair brought to the Icelandic dining experience.