Noto and Taormina account for eight of Sicily’s 20 MICHELIN Key hotels, four apiece. MICHELIN’s 2026 list gives the island one hotel at Three Keys, five at Two and 14 at One, from Palermo to Ortigia and out to the Aeolian Islands. In 2025 there were 16. All of them keep their tier. The four new names are all at One Key: Resort Fontes Episcopi at Aragona, Baglio Oneto at Marsala, Dimora delle Balze at Noto and The Ashbee Hotel in Taormina. San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel, is again the island’s only Three-Key hotel. The tiers come from MICHELIN’s 2026 list for Italy, published in Italian on 18 September, and the counts are ours. Its English page for Italy still shows the 2025 selection.
San Domenico Palace and five Two-Key hotels, from Palermo to Vulcano
San Domenico Palace stands on Piazza San Domenico in Taormina, “first a 14th-century convent, later a 19th-century grand hotel”, in MICHELIN’s words. It is the largest Key hotel on the island. It has 111 rooms. The artworks and antiques are “not reproductions but originals from the old convent’s collection”, while the rooms, “functionally”, are “as modern as can be”. MICHELIN also notes that the second season of The White Lotus was filmed here. Principe Cerami, its restaurant, is starred in the current guide, as in our piece on its two restaurants.
Two of the five Two-Key hotels are in Taormina too. Grand Hotel Timeo, A Belmond Hotel, has stood beside the Greek Theatre since 1873, and on Via Teatro Greco “the main event is outside”. It has 40 rooms and a permanent Dior Spa, as in our report on the spa. Its shuttle runs down to the private beach of Villa Sant’Andrea, a Belmond Hotel, a villa of 1919 on Via Nazionale with 66 rooms and a beach club for guests. Palermo has one. Villa Igiea, a Rocco Forte Hotel, has 100 rooms in an Art Nouveau villa by the architect Ernesto Basile. It was “Originally intended as a sanatorium” and stands “just ten minutes from the city center”, with terraced gardens above the sea.
The other two sit by the sea, at opposite ends of Sicily. Therasia Resort Sea&Spa is printed under Lipari, because Vulcano belongs to that municipality. It stands on Vulcano’s northern tip. Its saltwater infinity pools face Lipari across a narrow strait. “Il Cappero and I Tenerumi have both earned MICHELIN Stars”, the inspectors note. The resort has 70 rooms and opens from mid-April to mid-October, so its 2026 season is over. ADLER Sicilia, at Siculiana Marina on the south coast, occupies “a protected stretch of coastline within the Torre Salsa nature reserve”. It is “Built with local clay, volcanic stone, and cedar wood”, its suites are “minimalist and low-slung”, and the spa has “panoramic saunas, thalasso pools, and sea-view treatment rooms”.
All 20 Sicilian Key hotels, tier by tier, with rooms
The tiers and towns are MICHELIN’s, and the room counts are those shown on each hotel’s page.
| Keys | Hotel | Town | Rooms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Three | San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel | Taormina | 111 |
| Two | Therasia Resort Sea&Spa | Lipari, Isole Eolie (on Vulcano) | 70 |
| Two | Villa Igiea, a Rocco Forte Hotel | Palermo | 100 |
| Two | ADLER Sicilia | Siculiana Marina | 90 |
| Two | Grand Hotel Timeo, A Belmond Hotel, Taormina | Taormina | 40 |
| Two | Villa Sant’Andrea, a Belmond Hotel | Taormina | 66 |
| One | Resort Fontes Episcopi (new) | Aragona | 11 |
| One | Baglio Oneto (new) | Marsala | 47 |
| One | La Foresteria Planeta Estate | Menfi | 14 |
| One | Wine Relais Feudi del Pisciotto | Niscemi | 15 |
| One | Dimora delle Balze (new) | Noto | 11 |
| One | Country House Villadorata | Noto | 15 |
| One | Masseria della Volpe | Noto | 22 |
| One | Seven Rooms Villadorata | Noto | 10 |
| One | Susafa | Polizzi Generosa | 17 |
| One | Hotel Signum | Salina, Isole Eolie | 30 |
| One | Donna Coraly Country Boutique Hotel | Siracusa | 10 |
| One | Lùme | Siracusa | 6 |
| One | The Ashbee Hotel (new) | Taormina | 24 |
| One | Monaci delle Terre Nere | Zafferana Etnea | 27 |
Together they have 736 rooms, by our count, and Taormina’s four hotels hold 241 of them. Only five have 50 rooms or more. Of the 14 One-Key hotels, nine have fewer than 20.
Noto, Siracusa and Niscemi: seven One-Key hotels in the south-east
Noto has four Key hotels, all at One Key. Two of them belong together. Seven Rooms Villadorata occupies a Baroque palace on Via Cavour, in the historic centre, with frescoed ceilings and 10 rooms. “Each room is named after one of the mythical winds that blows over the region”. Country House Villadorata is “the countryside counterpart to Seven Rooms in Noto”, a restored late-19th-century estate farmed “in harmony with the principles of biodynamic agriculture”. Its Ecosuites have private plunge pools. Masseria della Volpe, south-west of the town, is “A restored 19th-century manor farm” with 22 rooms among olive, carob, palm and cypress trees. Its page lists a New Year’s Eve gala dinner, so it opens over the holidays. Dimora delle Balze, new in 2026, is a former farm estate about thirty minutes inland from Siracusa, with 11 rooms, “each one dedicated to a different artist or artwork”. It opens from Easter to the end of October.
Siracusa has two. Lùme, on Via Larga in Ortigia, is a six-bedroom house with “the warmth and intimacy of a private home”, a hammam and a rooftop for a drink before dinner. It has no restaurant. Donna Coraly Country Boutique Hotel stands on a 14th-century estate outside the city. It has 10 suites, a heated saltwater pool in a botanical garden and the Nuove Tradizioni restaurant in the former olive mill. According to MICHELIN, the Armistice of Cassibile was signed on the estate, in the Vigneto delle Vignazze, on 3 September 1943, and a commemorative stele stands on the property. At Niscemi, Wine Relais Feudi del Pisciotto is “an 18th-century estate turned boutique wine hotel”, with 15 rooms “Set among sun-bleached vineyards in Sicily’s remote southeast”.
Marsala, Aragona, Menfi and Siculiana: four Keys in the south-west
MICHELIN’s Italian text gives the south-west a paragraph of its own. Apart from the Valley of the Temples, it says, this corner of the island long sat off the main tourist routes, and it is now gaining high-end hotels rooted in local food, materials and countryside. Two of the new Keys are here.
Baglio Oneto, in the hills behind Marsala, is a former fortified residence among “35,000 square meters of vineyards” and old olive trees, with 47 rooms. Its pool is “a saltwater infinity pool with a view across the Stagnone Nature Reserve and Egadi Islands”. “The views are quite something”, the inspectors add. Resort Fontes Episcopi, at Aragona near Agrigento, is “a rustic resort in the Sicilian countryside”, with 11 rooms and “private bungalows, which even come with their own courtyards”. Its seasonal restaurant “specializes in pasta homemade with ancient grains” and teaches it in cooking classes. At Menfi, La Foresteria Planeta Estate is “a small-scale country retreat, overlooking the vineyards and olive groves”, with 14 rooms “named for the local plants” and herb gardens around the pool. ADLER Sicilia, at Two Keys on the coast at Siculiana, completes the group.
Taormina, Salina, Etna and the interior: four more at One Key
The Ashbee Hotel is Taormina’s new Key. It has 24 rooms on Viale San Pancrazio, in a villa “Built steps away from the ruins of an ancient Greek theater”, and it takes its name from the villa’s architect, Charles Robert Ashbee, of the Arts and Crafts movement. MICHELIN writes that “the Ashbee’s twenty-four guest rooms are all unique”, mostly in white “with the occasional well-placed splash of color”. St. George by Heinz Beck, inside the hotel, holds two MICHELIN Stars in the current guide.
On Salina, Hotel Signum, at Malfa, is “a marriage between boutique hotel and Aeolian farmhouse”. It has 30 rooms, a spa that uses the island’s geothermal water and a restaurant with a Star in the current guide. It opens from March through October. On the lower slopes of Etna, Monaci delle Terre Nere, at Zafferana Etnea, has 27 rooms, suites and villas. The soil is black, and “this black earth is the volcanic stuff”, in MICHELIN’s words. Its restaurant, Locanda Nerello, cooks mostly organic produce from the estate’s farm. The page lists charges for Christmas lunch and the New Year’s Eve dinner, and the hotel asks for a two-night minimum stay. Inland, Susafa, at Polizzi Generosa, is “A working farm in Sicily’s rustic, hilly interior”, with 17 rooms, original beams, no television and its own olive oil. Guests must be 12 or older.
The Luxury.it perspective
Sicily’s Key list is a map of small houses around a few large ones. Five hotels have 50 rooms or more. The other 15 have 47 or fewer, most of them in farms, wine estates and palazzi. Noto and Taormina are the two towns to plan around. Taormina covers every tier, from San Domenico Palace to The Ashbee. Noto holds four One-Key houses in and around its Baroque centre. The south-west is the change of 2026, with Marsala and Aragona joining Menfi and Siculiana. The seasons are short at both ends of the island. Therasia’s ended in mid-October, and Signum and Dimora delle Balze close at the end of October. For travellers from the United States, 2027 brings United’s flights from Newark to Catania, four a week from 28 May, as in our report on the new routes.
Related guides
Luxury hotels in Sicily · Italy’s 49 Two-Key hotels · Costa Ragusa, Sicily’s next luxury coast · All 30 Key hotels in Tuscany beyond Florence
