It’s the ultimate treat: neat trays of cloche-lidded dishes, tiny condiment jars and paper-topped glassware delivered to your room. A feast you can eat in a pristine white towelling bathrobe. A spread of potentially over-ordered, almost certainly mismatched items with no one around to judge. The only thing more luxurious than a late-night order at a hotel is an order at the world’s very best room service hotels.

Aman New York

New York City has perhaps the highest concentration of fabulous in-room dining experiences. Take the recently opened Aman Hotel’s in-room omakase service. Meaning “I leave it up to you”, this Japanese style of dining allows an expert sushi chef to slice and sizzle a curated selection of bite-sized dishes, creating a feast of surprises. Only guests in the Aman Suite, spread across floors 11 and 12 with corner views of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, can request this rarefied private audience with chef Takuma Yonemaru.

The Savoy, London

Adding a bottle of Laurent Perrier champagne, or smoked salmon and caviar, to your room service breakfast is just one opulent room service option at London’s A-list hotel. Past midday there are dedicated oyster and caviar menus, Cornish lobster rolls, Wagyu beef tartare, comfort foods like mac and cheese with black truffle or lobster, and sought-after vintages of Dom Perignon and Krug. Make like past guests Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra and lounge in your monogrammed bathrobe to enjoy.

Intercontinental Bora Bora, French Polynesia

This honeymoon spot makes the list of best room service hotels for its photogenic ‘canoe breakfast’, where breakfast trays of lavish tropical fruits, fresh juices and hot foods arrive floating on a va’a, a traditional wooden outrigger canoe. Decorated with local flowers, the vessel will glide up to your overwater villa, where a waitress in a flower crown serves piles of fresh pastries, melon and pineapple, yoghurt bowls served in half-coconuts, hot omelettes, sausages and more.

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An omakase chef will come to your suite at the Aman New York

Raffles, Doha

In the sculptural, horseshoe-shaped Katara Towers in the Qatari capital, this glossy new Raffles doesn’t do anything by halves. And that includes its in-room dining, where nine-course breakfast trollies are brought to majestic suites (involving Arabic touches such as signature shakshouka and labneh with honey). Meanwhile the all-day menu encompasses foie gras au torchon, wagyu rib-eye steaks, lobster casarecce, sole Meuniere and the signature Gold Cappucino. Want something even more niche? Every guest at this all-suite hotel has a butler on call, 24/7.

Park Lane Hotel, New York

Not every hotel can boast a “Caviar Hotline” ‒ but that’s the room service essential this Central Park-side hotel lays on for its guests. Dial 5 from your in-room telephone and you’ll select your caviar presentation of choice: from the tin, with blinis, creme fraiche, capers and red onion? Or sprinkled on nachos, topping deviled eggs, along with a glass or bottle of Nicolas Feuillatte Brut champagne ‒ or a shooter of Stolichnaya vodka.

Four Seasons Chicago

Whether you’re over or under the age of 21 will dictate which room service treat will bring you back to the FS Chicago. Will it be the legendary in-house ice cream cart? Call down to summon it for a 30-minute spree in your room, choosing between new seasonal flavours dreamt up by the hotel’s chefs, plus toppings from fudge sauce to sprinkles and M&Ms. Or for a more grown-up palate, you might craving the services of the martini cart, which appears with the questions: gin or vodka? Olive or twist? Both options have been delighting guests for nearly 25 years.

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The ice cream cart at Four Seasons Chicago hotel

The Peninsula, Bangkok

In a city known for its affordable, high-quality street food, staying in for tray service may seem especially decadent. But the Peninsula’s breakfast spreads alone are the stuff of legend: there’s a Chinese Breakfast involving dim sum and congee rice porridge, a Thai breakfast packed with fresh fruits and crabmeat omelettes, and a plant-based menu for vegans. Oysters by the half-dozen, and a whole range of Thai specialities from steamed sea bass to roasted duck red curry, give you options from comfort foods to luxury treats.

Fairmont Copley Plaza, Boston

Got a VIP – a Very Important Pet, that is – traveling with you? You’re going to want to check in at the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, which has a luxe in-room dining menu for guests’ dogs, as well as their humans. Codfish and caviar is the standout dish, though there’s also organic scrambled eggs with kale and quinoa for the health-conscious hound, and beef patties made (naturally) with the finest Aberdeen Angus beef.

Four Seasons Ko Samui

Make your reservations now for this Ko Samui resort – it’ll be booked up for years after its starring role on the next season of The White Lotus. But TV tourism is just one reason to visit: the hotel is known for its in-villa barbecues, where guests are treated to a traditional Thai moo kra ta feast of tiger prawns, Angus beef, pork and chicken cooked in a hot pot over glowing coals. Meanwhile, gourmet picnic baskets can be loaded up for you to enjoy in your villa or around the resort, featuring prawn and pomelo salads, mango and sticky rice and chicken wraps.

Vegan, healthy and even dog options are often available

Pendry Washington DC

With a Potomac river view, a rooftop sushi restaurant and glamorous pool terrace, the Pendry is one of DC’s hottest newcomers. And its in-room dining matches that energy: caviar-topped deviled eggs, Cobb salads sprinkled with lobster, and a New York strip steak with a decadent black truffle gratin. (Pair them with several top champagnes, Napa Valley reds or Provence rosés.) The Maine crab cakes are a real hit with regulars, while California rolls and artisanal cheese plates can be ordered if you get in after hours.

Milestone Hotel, London

Fancy a cocktail, but staying with someone you want to impress? At London’s Milestone Hotel, one of the creative room service options is an audience with one of the hotel’s expert mixologists. They’ll come up to your room to consult on your favourite notes and flavours, then stir you up the perfect aperitif. You could try the hotel’s own Smoky Old Fashioned, request a margarita or Manhattan as you like it, or ask your private bartender to shake up something entirely different. The Milestone is part of the Red Carnation group, the preferred hotels of Luxury Gold groups when staying in Britain.

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There is no tried and true list of the best places to propose. Each partner deserves a destination engagement that is tailored to their love language.

At Luxury Gold, we curate our journeys based on our guests’ desires, hand-picking the most unique experiences that showcase the diversity of a destination. So many of our bespoke experiences, from the hills of South America to the jungles of Asia, are inherently romantic, creating one of a kind places to propose.

That said, there are certain destinations that will make your special moment particularly unforgettable – and we’ve rounded them up and put a ribbon on them for you. All you need to do is bring the ring.

The Best Places to Propose on a Luxury Gold Tour

Did you know “truffle hunter” was a career choice? Not only is it a real job, but it involves leading a pack of extremely cute dogs on daily walks, in search of natural treasure. It’s a fascinating world to get a peek into, and you can do just that in Istria, a peninsula in northern Croatia. 

On Luxury Gold’s Croatia and the Dalmatian Coast journey, one of our luxury Croatia holidays, you’ll visit an established truffle farm, Prodan Tartufi; a small family operation, it’s been run by three generations of the Prodan family since the 1960s. Here, expert truffle hunter Visnja Prodan Jekić talks us through her typical day in the forests and farmland of Buzet, Croatia.

A good canine team is everything

It’s a myth that only one species of dog is fit to work in truffle hunting, says Visnja, though some do have it more in their blood than others. “We have a couple of terrier-mix dogs who we have trained from being very young puppies, and they are excellent ‒ the key is training them from very young,” she explains.

“We also have a Portuguese Water Dog ‒ this breed has hunting and retrieving in their DNA, but they are quite stubborn and alpha. They want to be the best on the team. Ours, Capo, is very young and doesn’t work well with others at the moment. When he’s older and calmer he’ll be able to work in a pair.” 

Dog training and relationship building is a huge part of Visnja and brother Mirko’s job ‒ they take one or two dogs out on every hunting mission.

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Training takes years

Visnja and the family spent years training their dog pack to be excellent truffle hunters. “We feed them with truffles when they are little, only a couple of months old, and they get to know the smell, to eat some and play with them,” she explains. “Then we eventually bury some so they learn to find their location and dig for them.” 

This means the dogs do get a taste for the truffles, however: “We have to be quick, back they never bark when they find one,” adds Visnja. “They just start digging, so we have to catch up and get to the truffle before them ‒ we take the truffle and give them a treat quickly, so they associate it with good work.” But no employee is perfect: many a dog has chomped through a very valuable truffle. 

You have to know where to look

Truffles tend to grow in certain locations in the forest; the most reliable corners of Prodan’s own land are a closely guarded family secret. “My grandfather was a very, very wise man. Everything we know about truffles, we learned from him,” says Visnja. “He started finding truffles in the 1960s, and taught my mum and her sisters everything there was to know about truffles, agriculture and wine.” As such, she’ll never reveal her truffle hot spots, keeping them a close secret between herself, her brother and the dogs. 

“If anyone found out where we find them, they could trespass and go looking for them,” she explains. However, new locations are found all the time ‒ in fact, animals help in spreading the truffles across woodland by eating them and depositing the spores around new tree roots. 

Try local truffles on Luxury Gold’s 12-day Ultimate Italy journey.

It’s an unpredictable pursuit

People think that this outdoorsy, dog-friendly role is the dream job, says Visnja, but really it can be long, unpredictable and frustrating. Everything from weather conditions to the dogs’ mood can affect their success rate. “If you’re not patient, it’s simply not a job for you,” she says. “Some people think they can just train a dog and go and find truffles, but there are so many hours spent walking in the woods and not finding anything.” 

She goes out for truffles all year round, though tourists most often visit for tours in spring and autumn. Summer can be a hindrance: “If it’s too hot, the dogs don’t tend to find anything; so we go early morning or late evening so they can smell better.” Their canine assistants are also quick to pick up on humans’ moods. “If you’re anxious or stressed, they can sense that and they refuse to do anything ‒ so you have to be incredibly calm.”

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Gastronomic knowledge plays a part

Away from the hunt, truffle hunters need to know the types of truffle they’re dealing with, their value and how quickly they should be used. “You have to pretty much sell them as you get them ‒ they get less flavourful and eventually rot. If you freeze them, the flavour gets lost, so it’s best to preserve them in oil,” explains Visnja. Prodan sells to local Croatian restaurants as well as selling wholesale worldwide. On her tours, Visnja takes guests back to the farmhouse to try a range of truffle spreads, pestos and condiments, as well as scrambled egg with grated truffle and truffle-sprinkled ice cream. 

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You can strike gold ‒ or white

“Depending on the time of the year, truffle hunters search for different types: you have several black truffle sub-varieties: black summer, autumn and winter. In terms of white truffles, you have white winter and white spring types.” The white winter truffle is the most expensive type; they cannot be cultivated, unlike the black variety. 

Prices really vary, says Visnja: “A lower quantity in one season means the prices go higher; last year the wholesale price went up to more than 5,000 Euros per kilo.” The most expensive truffle ever sold was a 4.16-pound white truffle, which went for $61,250 at Sotheby’s.

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Meet a truffle hunter on Luxury Gold’s Croatia and the Dalmatian Coast tour.