Distrito Capital

Class: First

Style: Cutting edge

Rooms: 30

Another year, another impressive entry from the Habita group, Mexico’s high-design boutique-hotel juggernaut. This one, the Distrito Capital, makes its home in the city’s Santa Fe quarter, a district of high-rise buildings and high-ticket retail — so it’s no surprise that this hotel should be one of Habita’s sleekest and most stylish, with interiors by the Parisian designer Joseph Dirand.

The design makes liberal use of sober charcoals and dignified dark woods, livened by the occasional graphic touch: a safety-orange lounge chair here, a vintage advertising sign there. Rooms are certainly comfortable enough but fall well on the sensible side of lavish, furnished with arresting vintage pieces, with luxuries concentrated where they’re most effective — Acqua di Parma bath products, for example.

In a sense that’s the Habita philosophy in a nutshell. Why waste your guests’ money on heated towel bars when you could provide something unique and memorable? To this end the Distrito Capital features the sort of poolside lounge you typically only see in a much larger hotel, and a private cinema for film screenings, rather than the typical hotel conference room. And if you want to splash out in big style, there’s always the presidential suite, which combines Habita hipness with the charming excess of a private gym.