Australia’s Michelin Key hotels: 17 properties in our portfolio

Australia joined the Michelin Guide’s hotel programme in 2025. Across that first selection and this year’s update, 17 properties in our portfolio have been named, including all three of the country’s Three Key hotels.

Michelin Keys are the hotel world’s equivalent of the Michelin star. Inspectors stay anonymously and assess five things: architecture and interior design, quality and consistency of service, personality and character, value, and how much the property contributes to its setting. Australia’s first Michelin Key selection arrived in October 2025 with 35 hotels. This year’s update added 22 more and promoted three, taking the national total to 54: three with Three Keys, nine with Two and 42 with One.

Ten were named in 2025 and have held their Key ever since, and two of them, Saffire Freycinet and Southern Ocean Lodge, were promoted this year from Two Keys to Three. The other seven are new to the list in 2026, among them Sequoia Lodge, which entered the guide at Two Keys.

A quick primer for anyone new to the system: One Key signals a very special stay, and Two Keys an exceptional one. Three Keys mark an extraordinary stay, worth planning a trip around. Only 155 hotels in the world hold Three Keys. Australia has three of them, and all three are in our portfolio.

Three Michelin Keys: Australia’s top tier

Lizard Island Resort, Great Barrier Reef

The northernmost resort on the Great Barrier Reef, set on a national park island with 24 beaches of its own. Lizard Island was the only Australian hotel awarded Three Michelin Keys in the 2025 selection, and it holds them again this year. Forty suites and villas face the reef, and the Australian Museum runs a working research station on the island. Cook’s Look, the summit James Cook climbed in 1770 to find a way out through the reef, is a morning’s hike from the resort. Dinner at Salt Water looks straight out over Anchor Bay.

Saffire Freycinet, Coles Bay

Promoted to Three Keys this year. Twenty suites at Saffire Freycinet sit on the shore of Great Oyster Bay, facing the pink granite peaks of the Hazards, with Wineglass Bay on the far side of the range. Tasmanian architect Robert Morris-Nunn designed the main building, whose sweeping curved roof is the lodge’s signature. Guests pull on waders at the neighbouring Freycinet Marine Farm and shuck oysters straight from the water. Palate, the restaurant, cooks with Tasmanian produce and pours Tasmanian wine.

Southern Ocean Lodge, Kangaroo Island

Also promoted to Three Keys this year, and one of only 18 hotels worldwide to join the top tier in 2026. The original lodge was lost in the 2019–20 Kangaroo Island bushfires. Architect Max Pritchard rebuilt Southern Ocean Lodge on the same clifftop above Hanson Bay, and it reopened in late 2023 with 25 suites facing the Southern Ocean. Flinders Chase National Park and the Remarkable Rocks are close by, and the sea lion colony at Seal Bay is an easy excursion.

Two Michelin Keys

Capella Lodge, Lord Howe Island

At Capella Lodge, nine suites sit beneath Mount Gower and Mount Lidgbird on a World Heritage-listed island in the Tasman Sea. Lord Howe caps visitor numbers at 400 at any one time, so even in peak season the beaches stay quiet. Days run on snorkelling the world’s southernmost coral reef, cycling the island’s few roads and, for the fit, the guided climb to the summit of Mount Gower.

Longitude 131°, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

Longitude 131° features sixteen tented pavilions are set into the red dunes, each facing Uluru, with Kata Tjuta on the horizon. Sunset drinks are served on the Dune Top, and Table 131 brings dinner out under the desert sky. Guided walks explain the cultural significance of the land to the Anangu, its Traditional Owners.

Sequoia Lodge, Adelaide Hills

New to the list this year, and the only Australian hotel to enter the 2026 selection at Two Keys. Fourteen suites line the side of Mount Lofty, each with a 180-degree view over the Piccadilly Valley, and the city centre is about 15 minutes away. The lodge takes its name from three Californian redwoods planted by the estate’s original owner, Arthur Hardy. Its artesian spring-fed stone hot pools sit along the valley rim, and dinner is at Hardy’s Verandah Restaurant on the Mount Lofty estate.

Silky Oaks Lodge, Daintree Rainforest

Treehouses are set above the Mossman River on the edge of the Daintree, the oldest continuously surviving tropical rainforest on earth, in Kuku Yalanji country. Silky Oaks Lodge reopened in 2022 after a full rebuild. The Healing Waters Spa uses native botanicals, Mossman Gorge is a short drive away, and the river directly below the lodge is for swimming.

Spicers Peak Lodge, Scenic Rim

The lodge stands on a mountaintop in Queensland’s Scenic Rim, on roughly 10,000 acres of high country, surrounded by the World Heritage-listed Main Range National Park. The infinity pool looks out over Spicers Gap, and two standalone lodges sit on the mountain’s edge with their own outdoor spas. The Peak, the restaurant, serves a degustation dinner, with meals and drinks included. Brisbane is about 90 minutes by road, or less by helicopter.

Spicers Sangoma Retreat, Blue Mountains

Eight suites sit on Bowen Mountain at the eastern edge of the Blue Mountains, looking out over bushland to the Nepean River below. Sangoma is the Zulu word for healer, and the retreat is built for couples, with deep baths, fireplaces and a spa grounded in bushland rituals. Amara, the restaurant, cooks over charcoal and fire, using produce sourced from within an hour’s drive.

One Michelin Key, including six new for 2026

El Questro Homestead, The Kimberley

New to the Michelin Key list this year. A small cluster of suites at El Questro Homestead is cantilevered over Chamberlain Gorge inside El Questro Wilderness Park, on Wilinggin Country in the East Kimberley, and the Homestead takes no more than around 20 guests at a time. Days cover gorge cruises, barramundi fishing, the palm-shaded Zebedee Thermal Springs and helicopter flights to waterholes that can’t be reached by road. Dinner can be served on a private clifftop above the river.

Halcyon House, Cabarita Beach

New to the list this year. Halcyon House is a 1960s surf motel on the Tweed Coast in northern New South Wales, reimagined by Brisbane designer Anna Spiro. Each of its 22 rooms is individually decorated, with fabric-lined walls and antique furniture. The pool opens onto the Cabarita point break through a screen of pandanus. Paper Daisy, the hatted restaurant, takes its name from the wildflower that grows on the headland next door.

Maleny Lodge, Sunshine Coast Hinterland

New to the list this year. The original house dates to 1905, and owners Andrew and Lucy Pink restored it and reopened it as an adults-only boutique hotel in 2022. It takes no more than 14 guests. The original wing, Rosedale, can be taken as a private three-bedroom house with a country kitchen, a log fire and a claw-foot bath. The whole property can be booked exclusively for small weddings and family gatherings.

Mt Mulligan Lodge, Far North Queensland

New to the list this year. Mt Mulligan Lodge stands on a 28,000-hectare working cattle station beneath Ngarrabullgan, or Mount Mulligan, an 18-kilometre sandstone escarpment of deep significance to the Djungan people. Guests arrive by a 35-minute helicopter flight from Cairns. The property still carries the traces of the gold and coal rush: an abandoned township, historic mine sites and one of Australia’s oldest working gold crushers. Guests fish for barramundi in the weir below the lodge and, in muster season, watch the station at work.

Pretty Beach House, Central Coast

New to the list this year. Pretty Beach House offers four pavilions, for a maximum of eight guests, stand high on the escarpment inside Bouddi National Park, among angophora forest above Broken Bay. The lodge acknowledges the Darkinjung people as the Traditional Owners of the land. Sydney is a 90-minute drive or a 20-minute seaplane flight away. Days can include walks along the sandstone cliffs, cultural tours of the national park and cruises on the bay, and the kitchen cooks from its own garden.

The Sundays, Hamilton Island

New to the list this year, and only open since April 2025. The 59-room hotel stands on the site of one of Hamilton Island’s original hotels, with a boardwalk down to its own beach. Carrie Williams designed the interiors, and the hotel commissioned original works from a First Nations artist and from Hungarian artist Tiarna Herczeg. Catseye Pool Club, run by chefs Josh and Julie Niland, is the signature restaurant. Unlike qualia at the other end of the island, The Sundays welcomes families.

Osborn House, Southern Highlands

The house dates to around 1892 and stands in Bundanoon, about two hours south-west of Sydney, looking out over Morton National Park. Interior designer Linda Boronkay, formerly design director of Soho House, and interior architect Alan McMahon reworked it as a country hotel. Rooms are split between suites in the main house and standalone cabins at the bush edge. The pool sits under a conservatory roof that partly retracts to open to the sky. The two restaurants, George’s and Dinah’s, are named after members of the Osborn family, and Dinah’s is reserved for guests.

qualia, Hamilton Island

Sixty pavilions occupy the northern tip of Hamilton Island, looking out across the Whitsunday Passage. qualia is adults-only, and Long Pavilion, the signature restaurant, faces west for sunset. Whitehaven Beach is a short boat or seaplane trip away.

Planning a stay at Australia’s Michelin Key lodges

Distance is the real planning variable, and these lodges group well by gateway city:

• Cairns:

   Lizard Island, Silky Oaks and Mt Mulligan, so the reef, the rainforest and the outback can fit into one week in Tropical North Queensland.

• Hamilton Island:

   qualia and The Sundays, reached by direct flights into the Whitsundays.

• Brisbane:

   Spicers Peak Lodge, Maleny Lodge and Halcyon House, all within a couple of hours’ drive.

• Sydney:

   Spicers Sangoma, Osborn House and Pretty Beach House, all within about two hours by road. Capella Lodge is a short flight away on Lord Howe Island.

• Adelaide:

   Sequoia Lodge in the Adelaide Hills, then a short flight to Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island.

• Hobart or Launceston:

   Saffire Freycinet is a drive from either.

Seasons matter more in the north. El Questro Homestead opens only in the dry season, roughly April to October, and Mt Mulligan Lodge closes each February. Lord Howe’s 400-visitor cap and the small room counts at most of these properties mean the best rooms go early, particularly over school holidays and the southern summer.

Our team handles the transfers, the sequencing and the reservations, so a multi-lodge itinerary across Australia’s Michelin Key hotels runs as one journey rather than a set of separate bookings.

Seventeen hotels across three Michelin tiers, spread from a reef island off Cape York to a Kimberley gorge, and from Lord Howe to Kangaroo Island. Each one is worth the journey, and each was shaped around the place it stands.

Get in touch with Touch of Spice to start planning a stay at any of these 17, or explore more of our Australia collection.