The Portman Ritz-Carlton, Shanghai

What the classifiers highlight

The brand's first hotel in China sits inside Shanghai Centre, an open-air plaza with its own supermarket, post office and consulates, steps from Nanjing Road and the acrobatics at Shanghai Centre Theatre. Forbes counts 593 rooms, the most of any hotel in the city, and recalls a concierge who once flew to Hong Kong just to fetch a guest's cigars.