The Best Hotels to Book in Chandigarh, India

Southeast of buzzing Sector 17, but quieter for it, Hotel KLG Starlite is a tidy modern block in a calm corner of Chandigarh. The gleaming rooms have acres of floor space, big bathrooms, shiny tiled floors and – in the Starlight Suite – a thoroughly 1970s circular bed. It’s comfortable, quiet and a gentle introduction to Chandigarh’s charms, with chilled public parks and gardens nearby.

Hotel Icon has a great location, northeast of a bustling shopping district but right on the doorstep of the Le Corbusier Centre and Sukhna Lake. You can walk to the best museums and gardens in the city and retreat afterwards to roomy, wood-lined bedrooms with a more sophisticated and restrained aesthetic than you’ll find in many hotels in Chandigarh. There’s good eating on site, too – and parking, which is handy if you’ve come up from Delhi with a car and driver.

Regarded by old hands as the pick of the hotels in Chandigarh, the Marriott serves the full suite of luxe hotel facilities, with fine dining, great coffee and a fitness centre, pool and spa. An easy walk from Sector 17, it has rooms with an uncluttered, modern air, with vast spans of floor space in the higher grades and huge city-facing windows in every room that also let in a glimpse of distant Himalayan foothills. A stay here is always very peaceful and refined.

Challenging the Marriott for supremacy in Chandigarh, the Hyatt is east of the action near Chandigarh International Airport, almost backing onto a preserved slice of forest running north to Sukhna Lake. The Hyatt rises grandly above the neighbourhood, with plenty of five-star amenities (restaurants, a bakery, a spa and a pool), but it’s the rooms that steal the show. The decor is design-mag glam, and almost a whole wall of the bedrooms is made of glass, admitting the best views of the city, bar none.

A gleaming modern property on the eastern edge of Le Corbusier’s planned city, Lemon Tree is handy for Sukhna Lake and Chandigarh International Airport, set away from the noise and hubbub of downtown. It’s a smart place, with a pool, a pool table in the bar and an easy-going multi-cuisine restaurant, for times when you don’t feel like roaming over to Sector 17. Rooms and suites are spacious and pleasingly simple, with in-room artworks inspired by Le Corbusier’s concept drawings.

From the Altius, the Dakshin Marg thoroughfare provides easy access to Le Corbusier’s planned city, but the city fringes location means a calmer night’s sleep at the end of the day. The “boutique” part of the name fits: rooms are tastefully done, with design furniture in bright, modern colours and big windows that let in the light. There’s a bar with views, a restaurant that excels in presentation as well as flavours, and a cosy lounge that feels like a Victorian library.

Regular visitors to Chandigarh love the Mountview for its expansive lawns, sedate and private outdoor pool and rambling rooms, done up in a kind of Indian Regency style and facing onto green grounds. The quiet location on the edge of the parkland sprawl of Leisure Valley means this may be the best night’s sleep in town, and there’s good Chinese and north and south Indian food on tap, too.

Away from the neat grid of Chandigarh, Hotel Surya Palace edges onto a tiny quadrant of Old India sneaking into Sector 45. This tangle of narrow lanes wraps around the ruins of Burail Fort, part of a Mughal enclave dating back 900 years. The hotel is a more modern affair, with slightly dated but comfortable rooms in 1980s colours. Staying here is certainly a contrast to the regimented order of the 1950s city.

Location is the key at this agreeable, central hotel, within easy strolling distance of great food and shopping options in Sector 17. Rooms have a vaguely 1980s feel, with two-tone headboards, leatherette armchairs and patterns that conjure up images of a piano-key tie, but they’re bright and comfortable, and being able to walk to the highlights of central Chandigarh is a major plus.