Address: Via Belmonte, 43, 90142 Palermo PA, Italy
Phone:  +39 091 631 2111
Website: roccofortehotels.com

Palermo’s scruffy, honey’d maze longs for its golden age of flamboyant parties, operas and splendid palazzi with grand ballrooms. One of them was Villa Igiea, a turreted, coastal beauty built at the beginning of the 20th century for the wealthy Florrio family. Inside, Olga Polizzi and Paolo Moschino oversaw an impressive Belle-Epoque recovery mission – easing the frescoes, chandeliers and gilt into the 21st century, particularly in the rooms with orderly lines and subdued-but-sumptuous fabrics. Book a sea-facing suite, with windows pulling in a warm Tyrrhenian breeze and that sharp Sicilian light, illuminating the works of local artists. Its Old World Igiea Terraazza Bar is possibly the most genteel spot in all of Palermo, where European royals and silver screen icons, including Sofia Loren, once hobnobbed over Champagne and cigars. The fragrant gardens zigzag down via a scenic pool, contemplation benches and exotic plants to meet a clifftop terrace facing the port. The hotel’s Florio Restaurant perfectly captures Sicily’s exotic opulence, where palms sprout from enormous glossy urns, gilt mirrors multiply the splendour, and statues bear down on diners tucking into snapper and artichoke.

Address: V. Pastificio, 98050 Malfa ME, Italy
Phone: +39 090 984 4222
Website: hotelsignum.it

Family-owned Hotel Signum welcomes guests into a genteel spin on island life – of siestas on wrought-iron day beds, porous rooms that blink through linen curtains towards a smoking Stromboli (fellow Aeolian island), and classic Sicilian breakfasts from vintage crockery. This reimagined fishing village is configured around a pool – its balconies and terraces like theatre seats for views of the Tyrrhenian and a lava-spurting Stromboli after dusk. Aperitivo hour is quite the event from a terrace surrounded by a tangle of cacti, jasmine and honeysuckle, where wild capers and those fat, asymmetrical almonds accompany classic Negronis and glasses of Etna red. A little down the island’s mule tracks lies Spaggia dello Scario for a soak in the warm cobalt water, or more energetic types can attempt to climb one of the island’s two volcanoes. But dinner here is a must, at the hotel’s bougainvillea-framed restaurant for imaginative plates of breaded scabbardfish with almond and tiger milk or seafood spaghetti drizzled in creamy sauce spill out from Martina Caruso’s one-starred Michelin kitchen (Sicily’s youngest female chef to receive a Michelin star and daughter of Signum’s owners).

Address: Via Teatro Greco, 59, 98039 Taormina, Sicily, Italy
Phone: +39 0942 627 0200
Website: www.belmond.com

Grand Hotel Timeo’s cinematic backdrop of Mount Etna and the glittering Naxos Bay once captivated Grand Tourees, who’d beeline for Taormina’s storied hotel (first opened in 1873). Today’s equally well-dressed guests saunter back from the Slim Aarons-style pool to marble bathrooms for long Acqua di Parma soaks, or an afternoon Aperol Spritz with the same staggering views that bewitched Oscar Wilde and LH Lawrence all those years ago. Breakfasts here are worth wrenching yourself out of wildly comfortable beds for – an elaborate, silver-service feast of sweet Sicilian classics, with healthier options balancing out the granita and irresistible mound of pastries. While the hotel sits in plum position for Taormina’s main thoroughfare (and just in front of the Greek Amphitheatre), its sister hotel, Belmond Villa Sant’Andrea lines up cabanas along the beach, a few hairpin tracks or a shuttle ride down the cliff. But the main event, really, is Otto Geleng’s Michelin starred tasting menu, served under flickering oil lamps and the smoky exhale or occasional fiery spurt from Etna.

Address: SS287, 96017 Noto SR, Italy
Phone: +39 0931 180 5361
Website: dimoradellebalze

Occupying a privileged spot atop a ridge, overlooking a valley of gorges and wild countryside, Dimora Delle Balze is an 18th century fortified Masseria, respun into a tasteful realm of limestone courtyards and earthy, linen-draped rooms. The grey, freckled walls of the old masseria are smothered in bougainvillaea, and its rooms appear to exhale onto courtyards dappled in sunlight and dotted with cacti and wrought iron daybeds. Everything flows, from the farmhouse breakfast table heaving with Sicilian citrus cakes, cheeses and fresh orchard jams to the terrace, lined with gnarled stone columns, and the courtyards funnel guests towards a good-looking pool, around which a boardwalk leads to cabanas with valley views. Noto’s Baroque treasures are within easy reach, though you’d be forgiven for staying put and scoffing the Sicilian classics worked from organic garden bounty or wallowing in the pool with a Negroni Spagliato.

Address: S.S. 115, Km 131, 92019 Sciacca AG, Italy
Phone: +39 0925 998001
Website: www.roccofortehotels.com

Located on Sicily’s lesser-known West Coast, Verdura is a luxury hotel-health club hybrid. Envisage a manicured 280 hectare valley of vegetable gardens, golf courses and soft lawns, whose vibrant green contrasts the surreal blue of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Paolo Moschino has overseen a stylish overhaul of the light-flooded main ‘hub’ - where a chic salon area spills onto the bar’s terrace and the restaurants below. Meanwhile, Olga Polizzi’s fresh classicism is easily discernable in the suites (all of which are positioned for the West Coast’s fiery sunsets). Once jodhpurs are peeled off from beach rides, tennis shoes unlaced and beekeeper headgear (yes, you can do this), removed, guests can lounge by the pool, tuck into seafood plates at poolside Ondina or flop under one of the beach parasols. With its outdoor thermal pools and long therapy list the Irene Forte Spa is a haven of self-care. In fact, this is possibly one of the few hotels in Sicily where you’ll return feeling healthier – there’s even a new Japanese restaurant at the piazza (a golf buggy ride away) and plenty of healthy Mediterranean options (fresh fish, lobster, kitchen garden bounty) across Verdura’s cluster of restaurants.

Address: Via Nazionale, 137, 98039 Mare, ME, Italy

Phone: +39 0942 627 1200

Website: www.belmond.com

Skirting the edge of a pretty bay and shingle beach, Villa Sant’ Andrea is one of Taormina’s only hotels to retain an old money feel – courtesy perhaps of its history as a Cornish family villa and home. It’s elegantly dressed, nothing flashy about it – expect a delicious blend of mahogany, modern art and cane, tasteful upholstery, and bookshelves filled with seaside trinkets and hefty Assouline classics. Belmond was clever to not gloss up the exterior of the long, turreted white villa and its adjoining buildings – positioning it in its rightful era. Similarly, the sea-facing terrace (for sunny breakfasts and drawn out lunches) recalls the Mediterranean villa of a tasteful friend – scattered in tile-topped tables and English garden furniture. A picturesque pool is elevated above over the rockpools below (Amalfi style), while the shingle-sand beach is lined with candy blue parasols and loungers for peak summer. Low-key, classy types stay here – understated in linen by day, donning their finery by night for 7pm drinks with a jazz singer. 

All rooms offer balconies with seaviews, though it's worth stretching for the Signature Suites’ terraces.