Just shy of an hour’s drive down the coast from bustling Barcelona sits the Costa Daurada’s only ‘Grand Luxe 5*’ resort: the very fancy Le Méridien RA Hotel & Spa. With 150 guest rooms, suites and apartments on the beachfront of ‘Platja de Sant Salvador’ in El Vendrell, this is a bona fide destination hotel, with bags of luxury, beautiful design, brilliant food and drink, and contemporary art that guarantees a decadent stay for discerning travellers.

What’s more, the hotel received significant upgrades ahead of the 2025 season, and we recently returned to witness how this luxe property is evolving

Set in a building originally constructed in 1929, originally designed to be a children’s hospital, the Le Méridien Ra opened its doors in 2004 following a careful restoration that transformed the property into a luxury resort with four food and beverage offerings, a spa with thalassotherapy circuit and solarium with sea views, rooftop swimming pool, and spacious guest rooms with views of the glittering Mediterranean Sea.

Today a more contemporary building houses the majority of the guest rooms, whilst the original construction is home to the Gran Deluxe rooms and suites and food and beverage offerings.

From its lobby space with imposing atrium, to the impeccably kept grounds currently dotted with a collection of Salvador Dalí sculptures; the contemporary beach club to its commanding position on the beautiful Costa Daurada; crafted cocktails at the Longitude Bar that lines the boardwalk, to long dinners at restaurant D.O., where executive chef pays homage to the produce and traditions of the neighbouring regions … Le Méridien Ra is a hotel one need not leave should your summer-slouch desires choose.

As of 2025, the hotel has entered a new era in its almost hundred year history, with significant upgrades to its spa, cocktail bar, and main restaurant. Transit Studio, the London-based design firm behind the transformation, has reimagined the hotel’s former chapel as Bar Tempus, a warm, richly textured space that draws on the local landscape and geology, using marble, natural plaster, and custom terrazzo. The result: an Instagrammable aesthetic that wouldn’t be out of place in some of Barcelona’s hippest spots.

Inviting as much as Instagrammable, the new design-forward lobby spaces add a depth to the guest experience, offering a convivial gathering point from winter through summer that previously felt lacking.

Meanwhile, the all-day dining restaurant La Terrassa del Mar has been completely reworked as an indoor destination, designed to echo the transition from land to sea with deep blues, lush greens and aquatic tones. Terracotta arches, a tiled ceiling and a new wine room bring structure and rhythm to the once-linear events space; opening it up as a core social area that balances architectural heritage with a softer, greener palette. Together, the restaurant and bar form a new centrepiece in the hotel’s effort to extend its season into the cooler months.

The spa, already an impressive 7,200 square metres, has been reimagined by wellness specialists Core Essence, now featuring a thermal experience circuit set on the rooftop. From here, views stretch across the Mediterranean, with a 900 square metre hydrotherapy terrace offering open-air immersion.

The rooftop spa’s impressively redesigned space strengthens the hotel’s year-round wellness credentials, positioning it as a destination for both deep reset and post-beach recovery — part of a wider effort to extend the season and elevate the guest experience beyond summer.

Aside from the gardens boasting works from the world’s most famous Catalan artist, Le Méridien Ra shows its support for the arts through commitments to lesser-known creatives; the corridors of the hotel currently adoring the irreverent work of Barcelona-based artist, Maite Caramés. Starring a couple of amphibious guests, the Between Paradise and the Deep Blue Sea series of photos follows their trials and tribulations throughout various spaces of the hotel complex; their exploits captured as a rather Monty Python-esque ode to oddness by the local photographer.

Benefitting from some 330 days of sun annually, the Costa Daurada — or, The Bright Side of Barcelona, as the hotel pleasantly put it — welcomes families and curious travellers interested in Catalan culture, cuisine, wine, and good times. The hotel’s impressive 300 metres of façade is best viewed from sea, which is straddles that nice fine line between warm and refreshing for the majority of the summer. An architectural treat that sets an elegant tone, whilst nodding to the history of its building, the ‘modern’ façade greeting guests arriving by road is at the opposite side of the beach, and offers a nice juxtaposition from the original 1929 building.

Managing to acutely capture the perfect combination of classic and modern makes Le Méridien RA a hotel of unique and exceptional twists and turns; its spaces, including an old chapel that for many years was the Church of San Juan de Diós, at times opulent, others cosy and brushed by history. Spacious rooms, graceful grounds, steps from the sea, art and design to encounter, and every luxury catered to … Costa Daurada’s only ‘Grand Luxe 5*’ resort is simply a slice of paradise.

@lemeridienra
@transitstudiouk

Photography, courtesy Le Méridien Ra / © We Heart / Agnese Sanvito courtesy v2com.