The Oberoi, New Delhi Review

The address explains a great deal. Dr Zakir Hussain Marg runs along the edge of the Delhi Golf Course in the centre of New Delhi, and the hotel's tower looks out over the wooded fairways on one side and towards Humayun's Tomb on the other, the sixteenth-century garden tomb that is one of the city's three UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The tomb is 2.6 kilometres away, Khan Market 2.4 and India Gate 3.4, and Indira Gandhi International Airport is about half an hour by car, traffic permitting. Old Delhi and the Qutub Minar are each within about half an hour's drive, which makes the hotel a practical base for seeing the city. In a capital of dense neighbourhoods and heavy traffic, a room that looks out over trees counts for more than any amenity. History is part of the hotel's standing. When it opened in 1965 as The Oberoi Intercontinental, India's grand hotels were still run in the old European manner, with dining rooms that closed early, and the Oberoi lays claim to having been the first in the country to offer 24-hour room service, butler service and a restaurant open around the clock. Half a century later the group closed it for the first time and rebuilt the interiors. Adam D. Tihany took the modernism of Lutyens' Delhi as his starting point, and the result is restrained rather than opulent: clean lines, a black-and-white chequerboard floor in the lobby, oak and teak. The Tree of Life, long the lobby's signature, survived the change. The renovation's best addition is the courtyard just off the lobby. A pair of curving staircases leads down to a terrace of black-and-white stone around a long water garden tiled in deep blue, with tables under parasols along its edges and a tall hedge closing the far end. It is easy to mistake for the pool, which is in fact in the gardens behind the hotel. That combination of outlook and restraint is what sets The Oberoi apart among Delhi's luxury hotels. The city has older buildings and more palatial lobbies. What it has few of is a central hotel where the rooms look out over green space and the atmosphere stays this composed.

Every one of the 220 rooms and suites faces either Humayun's Tomb or the Delhi Golf Course, and no category guarantees one or the other, so ask for the view you want when booking. The house style runs through all of them: teak floors, walk-in wardrobes, Italian marble bathrooms, oak writing desks and Lutyens-inspired furniture, with purified air and 24-hour butler service in every category. The photographs here are from Via Privata's stay and show the post-renovation look well: a deep teal wall behind the bed hung with black-and-white photographs of the city's landmarks, red and paisley textiles against cream walls, and a bathroom with a freestanding tub beneath the window and twin basins under a long mirror. The rooms divide into two clear groups. The Deluxe and Luxury Rooms are both 33 square metres, with king or twin beds, a full-length bathtub and a separate shower; the 56 Luxury Rooms are on the upper floors, where the views are among the best in the hotel. They are well finished but compact, and for more than a night or two the extra 18 square metres of the next tier make a clear difference. The Premier and Premier Plus Rooms are 51 square metres, large enough for a proper sitting area, and the 56 Premier Plus Rooms add a twin vanity and access to the Residents' Lounge, a quiet room of dark wood and red walls open from 11 am to 11 pm to Premier Plus and suite guests. For most travellers Premier Plus is the category to book: the extra space, the second basin and the lounge make the biggest difference for the money. The suites begin with the 21 Oberoi Suites, 67 square metres with a bedroom and a separate living room, a sensible choice for longer stays. The six Deluxe Suites, at 130 square metres, add a balcony and a pantry and include return airport transfers; the six Luxury Suites, at 167 square metres, have their own dining room and feel like a private apartment. At the top, the 325-square-metre Kohinoor Suite has a study, a therapy room and a private gym. On a first visit, ask for the Humayun's Tomb side. The dome on the horizon is the view that tells you where you are; the golf-course rooms look out over a canopy of trees instead.

Indian cooking is the reason to eat in, and Dhilli is the place for it. The hotel's newest restaurant, mentored by the Michelin-starred chef Vineet Bhatia, takes Delhi itself as its subject, with recipes drawn from family homes, street stalls and traditional community kitchens, from the chaat of Chandni Chowk to the kormas of Jama Masjid. For a first evening in India it is a better introduction than a pan-Indian menu, because it explains the cooking of the city outside the door. Dinner is served every night and lunch from Friday to Sunday; book ahead, and note that children under 13 are not admitted after 9 pm. The rest of the dining covers a lot of ground. Baoshuan, whose name means Chinese treasure ships, serves modern Chinese cooking and dim sum under the mentorship of Andrew Wong of A. Wong in London, which holds two Michelin stars, and it has twice appeared on Condé Nast Traveller India's list of the country's top 50 restaurants. 360°, the all-day restaurant, serves Indian and international dishes from 6.30 in the morning until 1 am, and has long been called the living room of Delhi for the way the city's business and social circles use it. The Oberoi Patisserie takes care of coffee and pastries during the day. The two bars suit different evenings. Cirrus 9, on the roof, is the place for a drink at dusk, with the golf course and Humayun's Tomb below and a cocktail list inspired by the city's landmarks. The Club Bar and Cigar Lounge is the opposite mood, all deep red and maroon, wood panelling and brass, with hand-rolled Cuban cigars that guests can keep in their own humidor lockers. Under Delhi's excise rules, both bars admit guests under 25 only until 8 pm, a rule to bear in mind when travelling with young adults.

The swimming pool sits in the gardens at the back of the hotel: a 22.5-metre outdoor pool on a terrace of lawns and loungers, kept between 26 and 28°C all year, a comfort in Delhi's winter, the best season to visit, when the mornings are cool. The spa now runs under Asmi by Oberoi, the wellness concept the hotel introduced in October 2025, after Via Privata's stay, so what follows describes the current offer rather than the 2024 visit. Asmi takes its name from the Sanskrit for "I am" and builds its menu on Indian traditions: the signature massage uses warm kasa bowls, a bronze alloy valued in Ayurveda, and the Indian therapies include a hot herbal poultice and head and foot massages. The facilities include private therapy rooms with warmed beds, aromatic steam rooms, an infrared sauna, a couples' suite and a 19.5-metre indoor pool. Treatments are for hotel guests and are best booked a day ahead. The fitness centre is open around the clock, a yoga session is offered free each day, and private yoga can be arranged. One practical point belongs here too: Delhi's air is at its worst in the winter months, and the hotel filters the air throughout the building, a point in its favour for anyone sensitive to pollution.

Service is the idea the Oberoi group was built on. Mohan Singh Oberoi, who took charge of his first hotel in Shimla in 1934, ran his company on a single principle, "The guest is everything", and three generations of the family have kept it as the group's creed. The group also founded its own hospitality school, the Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development, in New Delhi in 1966, a year after this hotel opened. The hotel's reputation rests on service in that tradition, starting with 24-hour butler service for every room and suite, a practice that goes back to the opening in 1965. It appears year after year in the readers' awards of Condé Nast Traveller and Travel + Leisure, and for six decades it has been one of the places where Delhi itself meets, over lunch at 360°, drinks in the bars and functions in the banqueting rooms.

Couples will find the right balance of calm and occasion: a Premier Plus Room or an Oberoi Suite on the Humayun's Tomb side, dinner at Dhilli and a drink at Cirrus 9 as the light fades. Luxury travellers who want space should go straight to the suites, and the Deluxe Suites, with their balconies, are the most appealing of the larger categories. For first-time visitors to India, The Oberoi is one of the easiest arrivals in the country. It is about half an hour from the airport, central without being frantic and quiet enough to recover from a long-haul flight, with the great monuments of New Delhi a short drive away. Dhilli is a well-judged introduction to Indian food. For guests beginning a longer itinerary, it is the obvious first stop. Most international travellers to northern India arrive in Delhi, and Via Privata's own journey continued from here to Agra and into Rajasthan, including Amanbagh, Aman's walled garden retreat in the Aravalli hills. Oberoi also runs some of the best-known hotels on that route, among them The Oberoi Amarvilas in Agra, The Oberoi Rajvilas in Jaipur, The Oberoi Vanyavilas at Ranthambhore and The Oberoi Udaivilas in Udaipur, so a trip can keep one standard of service from the first night to the last.

The Oberoi, New Delhi is one of the best places in the capital to begin a first journey through India. Its strengths lie in an outlook over a forested golf course and a Mughal tomb that no newer hotel could reproduce, interiors the 2018 renovation brought fully up to date, an Indian restaurant in Dhilli that speaks for its city, and service in the Oberoi tradition. The one caution is size: the entry rooms are compact, so the choice of category matters more here than at most hotels, and from Premier Plus upwards the rooms match the standard of everything else.