At the New Regent Santa Monica Beach, Enjoy Pacific Views and the Best Facial of Your Life

Stay Here For

A high-touch, unfussy beachfront stay with a world-class spa and restaurant you’ll actually want to tell your friends and family about.

It can be tricky to breathe new life into an old space.

But the team at IHG has managed just fine with Regent Santa Monica Beach, whose pier-adjacent bones the hotel group acquired from Loews and reopened in 2024. Their success is made all the more notable by the fact that this is the only Regent in the United States.

In keeping with the laid-back spirit of beachy Santa Monica, this hotel feels approachable to newcomers of both the brand and the city. Staff are pleasant and engaged, and the hotel itself feels fresh, refined and unfussy—a temple to accessible luxury, with a soaring skylighted lobby, softly rounded furniture and neutrals in every shade and medium, from marble pillars to tanned-leather banquettes, where families and colleagues alike enjoy prettily plated food that tastes even better than it looks.

Wedged between the hotel’s two wings, there’s a large pool overlooking the ocean where you can spend your afternoons—unless you’d prefer to have a beach butler set you up across the street, complete with a direct contact number and snacks and drinks at your discretion. Elsewhere, there’s an all-day grab-and-go bakery and café by Ayesha Curry, the multi-hyphenate entrepreneur and wife of one basketball player whose name isn’t spoken around these parts. Get yourself a black truffle Caesar salad and some baby heirloom beets with hazelnuts in between activities (or, if you’re here to attend a conference in one of the hotel’s many meeting spaces, between panels). Even the rooms are conceived to feel ultra-welcoming to every guest, regardless of room category, each with a princely floor plan and at least a sliding glass door or balcony.

Of course, there’s still plenty of shine for veteran fans of the brand to appreciate. Consider the caviar service and handlaid Italian floor mosaics at Orla by Michael Mina, the hotel’s main dining venue, which cascades out from the lobby bar toward the water. Or the Guerlain Wellness Spa and its boutique, a veritable temple to beauty, to which you could happily surrender a whole afternoon. There’s even a dedicated car service that’ll deliver you, via the house Bentley or Mercedes-Benz, to any destination within a two-mile radius of the property.

Ultimately, though, the hotel works hard to ensure that the finer things never come at the expense of casualness. The whole operation, from service to decor, is cheery and bright, if a little anonymous, wholly unpretentious but entirely up to snuff. You can bring your finest designer duds or leave them at home, order cozy comfort food or expand your palate. The point is, whatever you decide on is just fine.

The Essentials

The Location

Set aside some time to explore the adjacent pier, a historic SoCal attraction.

The hotel sits within striking distance of the Santa Monica Pier, occupying arguably the most prominent location on the city’s strip. It’s so close to the landmark, in fact, that from some rooms, you can see its neon-lit Ferris wheel and roller coaster from your bed. You’re just across the street from the ocean, and you can easily take the public biking and walking path that cuts in front of the hotel south to Venice Beach, a route that’ll bring you past neighboring properties like Shutters on the Beach and Hotel Casa del Mar, and farther on, souvenir shops, tattoo parlors and burrito spots.

The Bars and Restaurants

The hotel’s primary restaurant, Orla by Michael Mina, is truly a feat, in that the food is so good, you’ll never feel let down by having decided to dine in. Chef Michael Mina’s Egyptian- and Greek-influenced menu offers you a bullet-train tour through the Mediterranean at all times of day: At dinner, it begins with tzatziki- and caviar-topped zucchini fritters—like the chicest latkes you’ve ever had—then wends its way through various meze and spreads (grilled octopus with sprigs of parsley and butter beans the size of quarters; bright hamachi crudo; smoky baba ghanoush and punchy muhammara mopped up with fluffy, piping-hot pita) toward expertly grilled meats and fish, ranging from harissa-grilled lamb chops to phyllo-crusted sole meunière. Every bite is exceptional, the wines are lovely and varied—there are lesser-seen Greek and Lebanese bottles in addition to French and Italian mainstays—and the service is attentive and speedy. The restaurant is also the main breakfast venue, which might feel tiresome if not for chef Mina’s creativity (even his lightly air-fried potato croquettes, a glamorous sibling of hash browns, are no small accomplishment), and the way the California sunlight changes the vibe of the space throughout the day.

There’s also Sweet July Café, a grab-and-go outlet from Ayesha Curry where, in addition to chai lattes, teas and flat whites, you can also pick up fresh turkey sandwiches, light salads and chilled bottles of wine (red, white, rosé, orange and sparkling) throughout the day. Even the outdoor options are solid: Azure Bar, next to the pool, offers a respectable selection of draft beers, cocktails, mocktails and wines, plus bites like calamari karaage and chilled prawns to nibble on between flips on your chaise longue. Azure also offers a daily brunch menu that stretches from 9 a.m. till 3 p.m., perfect for late risers who love to enjoy a cinnamon bun and a lobster Benedict late into the day.

The Room

One thing to know about this hotel: You’ll never be short on space. Rooms here have designated sleeping areas; lounge areas with a couch, television and corner dinette; and a changing and bathroom area (with a door to close it off from the rest of the room), complete with a makeup table, walk-in closet, double vanity, toilet and bidet stall, soaking tub and almost comically large walk-in shower with a seat.

You can choose from city views, pool views and oceanfront views, and if you really want to maximize the hotel’s location, you can upgrade to a 720 Oceanfront King, with a sprawling balcony kitted out with a dining table, lounge seating and a firepit you can turn off and on at will. Parents traveling with kids will also rejoice at the hotel’s 49 connecting rooms, a mix of double queens and single kings, which can be guaranteed upon booking. Suites offer as much as 3,200 square feet, and vary in layout—some are bi-level, with proper dining rooms, living areas and balconies up top, and a bedroom, lounge and outdoor entertaining space below, while others claim corners of the property, and feel more comparable to condos. (The hotel’s top billing, the Santa Monica Suite, is a mind-boggling 3,200 square feet, with a single bedroom but wings that house a pool room, a blacked-out media room and a primary bathroom capacious enough to rival most New York City studio apartments.)

Like the rest of the hotel, the aesthetic of the rooms and suites is calm, clean and approachably modern—modular-luxe, if you will—with subtle nods to the ocean and just a few well-placed hints of color. The design isn’t meant to challenge or surprise you; after all, you’re at the beach. Rather, it seeks to put you at ease with soft colors, rounded edges and faux potted olive trees—and at that, it’s very successful.

The Standout Feature

The Guerlain Wellness Spa, one of only a handful in the United States, is a must-visit during your stay.

It may not be the main reason you’d book this hotel, but the Guerlain Wellness Spa is the X factor that, should you choose to indulge in one or two of its treatments, will complete your stay. This is the French beauty house’s sole spa on the West Coast—it has only a few official retail outlets across the continent—and it made sure to memorialize that fact, creating four specially designed treatments for the property. One of them, Skin Perfection, offers such a good facial that it’ll make you wish you had a big event to attend.

The Time to Go

This being California, with its endless string of 74-degree days, there’s really no bad time to go. But there’s something especially sweet about the late fall and early winter, when the beaches are uncrowded, the air is a little cooler and the already-bright lights of the Santa Monica Pier get a little extra holiday cheer.

The Vibe

At sunset, there are few better places to be than out on your balcony, warming yourself over a firepit with a glass of white wine in hand.

The family-friendly amenity that’s really for the parents: The designated kids’ menus (breakfast, lunch and dinner) at Orla by Michael Mina—because nothing’s worse than having to ask whether the gourmet restaurant can do chicken fingers for your raging toddler.

The highly specific reason you’d come here: You’re craving a slow, low-stakes, long-weekend getaway with your partner—the kind that allows you to take leisurely walks alongside the ocean, get butler service at the beach and spend a few decompressing hours at the spa before moseying toward a genuinely excellent dinner.

What are people drinking? Any of chef Mina’s specialty cocktails, which, like the rest of the menu, are inspired by Greece and Egypt; the Wadj-Wer, named for an ancient Egyptian god embodied by the Mediterranean Sea, is an appropriately bright and refreshing blend of vodka; Italicus, a citrusy liqueur; cucumber; lime; basil; and honeydew. But you also wouldn’t go wrong with a glass of ruby-red wine, straight from Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley.

The perfect spot for your social media post: Azure Bar on the pool deck, which overlooks the beach—or, if you’re lucky, your very own oceanfront balcony—at sunset.

The souvenir from the gift shop you’re bringing home: Jewelry from local designers, cashmere sweaters, leather sandals: anything from the well-curated Seaside Collective Boutique, the hotel’s main gift shop, or, from the Guerlain Wellness Spa boutique, the beauty brand’s intoxicating Tobacco Honey perfume.

Everything Else