Park Hyatt Seoul

Light, Stone and a View Over Gangnam

Park Hyatt Seoul occupies the upper floors of a glass tower on Teheran-ro, and its design studio, Super Potato, built the whole stay around natural light and material contrast: Japanese and Chinese stone, Myanmar oak, dark maple, set against floor-to-ceiling glass that turns the building into what regular guests call a glass box by day and a lantern by night. The sky lobby on the 24th floor, with orange leather seating and oak tables, is less a check-in desk than a lounge you'd linger in regardless of whether you were staying the night, and it sets the tone for everything below it.

Why It Works

Seoul has no shortage of five-star towers, but few commit as fully to a single design language as this one does, carrying it from the lobby down into the spa-sized bathrooms, which take up roughly a third of each room and include a deep soaking tub and a separate rain shower. That consistency, plus a genuinely limited-access rooftop pool and a bar built around Korean craft rather than imported polish, is what separates it from the more generic luxury chains nearby, and it's why we're giving it a place alongside the city's other design-led stays rather than its business hotels.

Why This Location

The hotel sits in Gangnam, a short walk from Samseong subway station and the COEX convention and exhibition district, putting it closer to Seoul's business and shopping core than the palace-adjacent hotels north of the river. It suits guests who want easy access to Gangnam's restaurants, department stores and nightlife without staying inside the noise of it, and it works equally well as a design-focused weekend stay as it does for a conference trip, with meeting space for groups up to 80.

Fast Facts

• Price tier: €€€€

• Vibe: minimalist, architecture-led luxury with an Eastern-Western material palette

• Rooms: 184, including suites with spa-style bathrooms

• Best For: design-conscious travellers and anyone combining a Gangnam business trip with a proper hotel stay

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the 24th-floor sky lobby, glass on every side with the city falling away below it

• Dining: an open-kitchen restaurant and a cellar holding more than 3,000 wines

• Amenities: indoor heated pool, fitness centre, adults-only spaces, sauna

• Nearby: Samseong subway station, COEX convention and exhibition district

The Sky Lobby and Its Pool

The hotel's best-known feature is its 17-metre indoor pool, set at the end of the lobby lounge and kept deliberately exclusive, with access limited to a handful of swimmers at a time rather than opened to a full day's guest list. Paired with the sky lobby's view and its stone-and-wood palette, it gives the top floors a sense of calm that's rare in a tower this close to Gangnam's traffic, and it's the part of the hotel most worth building a free afternoon around, especially for guests who'd otherwise spend that time in a conference room.

Dining and a Bar Built Like a Wooden House

Downstairs, the hotel's restaurant runs an open kitchen built around grilled meats and seafood, with private dining rooms for small groups and a wine list deep enough to anchor a serious dinner on its own. The bar takes the opposite approach to the glass tower above it: modelled on a traditional Korean wooden house, it pours whisky, sake and soju alongside cocktails, often with live music in the evening, and it's where the hotel's design idea feels most personal rather than corporate. Between the two, it's easy to spend an entire evening without leaving the building, which is exactly the point.