For design
Amyth of Nicosia
Nicosia · Cyprus
Nicosia is the Mediterranean capital most travellers skip, the last divided city in Europe, and its walled old quarter is where Amyth has chosen to plant itself. The house is an early-twentieth-century mansion, built as two private residences and later turned into a school, then closed and left to the dust for the better part of twenty-five years. Thanos Hotels took a long lease from the church that owns it and spent two years bringing it back. What they kept counts as much as what they changed. The painted ceilings have been restored, the original floors stayed down, and the old stone staircase still winds through the middle of the house. Maria Neophytou has given the ten rooms a low-lit, unshowy calm, while Eraclis Papachristou handled the architecture of the restoration. Pale blue shutters sit on honey-coloured stone, a courtyard of olive and citrus holds the centre, and the old city presses at every window.
Dinner is served in the courtyard, under the trees, where the kitchen reads Cypriot first and broader Mediterranean after, built on local and seasonal produce and run by the chef Andrew Michael Smith. A smaller room across the lane takes the quieter nights, and there is a bar tucked away for a drink before you sit down. This is cooking tied to the island and the season rather than to any tasting-menu ambition, and it is the better for knowing what it is. On a warm Nicosia evening the courtyard, lamplit and walled off from the street, is reason enough to book a table whether or not you are staying the night.
Most of what passes for a city hotel in this part of the Mediterranean is a tower with a view. Amyth is the opposite, a listed house given its life back inside the walls, and the first member of Design Hotels to open in Nicosia. It makes the case that the capital is worth a night of its own rather than a change of planes on the way to the coast, with the Archbishopric, the Kornesios mansion and the crossing points of the old town all a short walk from the door. It is a small place, ten rooms only, and it does not pretend to be a resort. Come for the building and the quiet, take one of the rooms with a veranda over the rooftops, and let the city do the rest.
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Plan with me on WhatsAppInside the Venetian walls of old Nicosia, Cyprus, opposite the Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios mansion and near the Archbishopric.
Five-star; a restored early-twentieth-century mansion with ten individually designed rooms and suites, some with verandas over the old city. It is the first Design Hotels member in Nicosia.
A courtyard restaurant that reads Cypriot and Mediterranean, built on local and seasonal produce, with a smaller room across the lane and a tucked-away bar.
The Archbishopric, Faneromeni, Ledra Street and the Venetian walls of the old town, all within a short walk.
