But with the recent arrival of five-star contemporary favourites such as the St Regis and or the Four Seasons, located along bustling Market Street, the high end has come down to sea level and into buzzy SoMa, the acronym for the once-gritty-now-booming area south of Market Street.

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It also has the only five-star hotel in Russia outside Moscow and St Petersburg, put there in a fit of premature optimism by an Austrian chain, Marco Polo, and later turned over to local management.

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In West Bay, pull up at the new St Regis Doha, the most spectacular five-star hotel in an area filling up fast with other big-name hotel brands.

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