The Barceló Hotel Group has announced the opening of the new Canfranc Estación hotel, which will be operated under the Royal Hideaway Luxury Hotels & Resorts brand, which has been operating since this weekend.
Inaugurated in 1928 and declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in 2002and which in turn is part of the Railway Historical Cultural Heritage, the Canfranc International Station is one of the most important railway complexes built in Europe in the first third of the 20th century.
Owned by the Government of Aragon, the Barceló Hotel Group aspires to turn the Canfranc Estación hotel into a Royal Hideaway Hotel into a benchmark 5-star establishment in the Aragonese Pyrenees, both nationally and internationally, and which will be an important point of attraction for luxury tourism for the region.
Sustainability Award
Last week in Madrid, the recovery project for the iconic station received the Re Think Hotel award as one of the best sustainability and hotel rehabilitation projects carried out in Spain by preserve the valuable cultural heritage of an emblematic building with more than 90 years of history. Some awards created by the Habitat Futura Group and the TSMEDIA digital platform with the collaboration of the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda, with the aim of promoting the application of sustainability criteria in the rehabilitation of hotels.
For the General Deputy Director of Construction and Development of the Barceló Hotel Group, Juan Manuel Gordillo, “the hotel is located in a unique building of its kind, so the rehabilitation project has tried to enhance the great history of this station at the beginning of the 20th century at the same time that we designed a 5-star Grand Luxury hotel with the standards of the Royal Hideaway brand”.
104 rooms
The new establishment Estación Canfranc, Royal Hideaway Hotel 5* GL has 104 rooms, four of which, with the category of luxury suites, are distributed between the first and second floors.
On the ground floor there is a wellness area with a heated pool, four treatment rooms and a complete gym; in addition to the library, where you can enjoy a cocktail menu, and three restaurants; two of them, the gastronomic restaurant and the à la carte restaurant, will be located outside the building, in two carriages that have been rehabilitated following the classic style of trains from the early 20th century. The historic station concourse houses the hotel reception.
The interior design studio Ilmiodesign has been in charge of the interior design of the hotel, which has been inspired by the aesthetics of the old stations and luxurious long-distance trains, with their particular wagons and representative elements, but adapting it to its characteristic style and contributing a contemporary twist.
Also noteworthy is the integration of Aragonese popular culture in certain textile elements and with games of colors inspired by the rich and varied regional costumes of the area.
High kitchen
The culinary offer of the new hotel has the gastronomic direction of Eduardo Salanova and Ana Acín, two experts in haute cuisine and natives of Huesca, until now in charge of La Venta del Sotón, an institution of Huesca gastronomy founded in 1967; and Espacio N, a restaurant inside La Venta that in 2021 won a Michelin star in recognition of its avant-garde Aragonese cuisine.
Chef Eduardo Salanova’s gastronomic proposal for Canfranc Estación, The Royal Hideaway Hotel is creative cuisine with unbeatable technique, with nods to ancient Aragonese recipes and its own avant-garde creations, where the protagonist is flavor.
Related news
“In a place that has meant so much to the history of our region, the kitchen has a lot to tell and contribute. We want to extol the gastronomy of our land through recipes and innovative proposals in which quality is above all else”, the chef has pointed out. On the other hand, Ana Acín creates a special room service where diners can appreciate the union between kitchen and room, as well as offering great treatment and respect for wine.
With this new opening, the Barceló Hotel Group reinforces its presence in Aragon, where it has been present since 2005, the year in which the Barceló Monasterio de Boltaña hotel was inaugurated; an old 17th century monastery converted into a luxury hotel located in Boltaña, also in the province of Huesca.