A heritage hotel in the small Waikato town of Cambridge has picked up one of hospitality's newest international accolades — and it did so barely a year after opening its doors.
The Clements Hotel on Duke Street has been awarded a Michelin Key in the 2026 selection, the second year Michelin — the company behind the famous restaurant guide — has rated hotels in New Zealand. The award recognises stays that feel special and character-filled, with polished service and a genuine sense of place. It arrived less than a year after the hotel welcomed its first guests in August 2025.
The property is a multimillion-dollar restoration of the 1866 Beaux-Arts Masonic hotel, and much of the original fabric survived the rebuild. Think stained glass windows and the original wooden staircase. There are 29 rooms, two of them fully accessible with modified bathrooms, plus a restaurant, cafe and wine bar. The old horse stables out back became three private suites, and the 150-year-old basement now houses 1866, a Prohibition-style speakeasy bar with Chicago-inspired nods.
The recognition has gone down well locally. Waipā Mayor Mike Pettit called it an outstanding milestone for the district, while Hamilton and Waikato Tourism boss Nicola Greenwell noted the hotel sits comfortably alongside the region's big-name draws — Hobbiton and Hamilton Gardens among them — and should lift the whole town's hospitality and retail sector.
The Clements is managed by Capstone Hotel Management under an agreement with the Marsden Group, which had reason to celebrate twice: the group's Delamore Lodge on Waiheke Island was upgraded from one Michelin Key to two this year. The Clements also holds a Qualmark Gold sustainability award and earned a 5-star boutique rating at its first evaluation.
The broader picture looks good for New Zealand. No hotel in the country holds three keys, but 10 properties now sit at two keys — three of them newly promoted — and 18 hold one key, eight of them first-timers. Australia still leads on the top tier with three three-key hotels, but New Zealand's two-key count edges out Australia's nine.
Why does this matter to travellers? Michelin's assessors scrutinise every detail of a stay, so a key is a reliable shortcut for anyone chasing boutique luxury outside the usual Queenstown-and-Auckland circuit. Cambridge — traditionally known for horses, heritage and a tidy town centre — is now a credible base for a Waikato escape: Hobbiton is a short drive away, and the hotel's speakeasy gives you a reason to linger after dinner. For a newly opened property, the speed of this recognition suggests the operation is genuinely on point rather than still finding its feet.
Story first reported by NZ Herald Travel.
