Grand Cayman’s Seven Mile Beach has added a third Michelin Key to its collection. Kimpton Seafire Resort and Spa received One Key in the guide’s 2026 hotel selection.
The resort joins The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman and Palm Heights, both of which kept the single Keys they won last year, when Michelin first extended its hotel awards to the Caribbean.
All three properties form part of Dart’s hospitality portfolio.
The Seafire is marking its tenth anniversary, and Yann Gillet, its area general manager, said the award meant seeing “a decade of dedication recognised on a global stage”.
It was one of seven Kimpton hotels worldwide to earn a Key this year, according to parent company IHG Hotels and Resorts.
The Key caps a strong run for the 264-room resort. Earlier this summer, Travel and Leisure readers placed it 22nd in the magazine’s ranking of the 25 best resorts in the Caribbean, the only Cayman property on the list, in a poll that drew 661,000 votes.
The magazine highlighted the resort’s Seven Mile Beach frontage, its sea views and Library by the Sea, its literary-themed cocktail bar.
The Keys, which Michelin awards to hotels as the equivalent of its restaurant stars, are now in their third year.
Inspectors visit anonymously and judge hotels on five measures: architecture and interiors, service, personality, value and what a property adds to its destination.
This year, they awarded first-time Keys to nearly 500 hotels and promoted more than 80, taking the global count to 2,020 One-Key, 657 Two-Key and 155 Three-Key properties.
The United States, Mexico and Canada now share almost 500 Keys.
Costa Rica was the regional standout, collecting eight new or upgraded distinctions, among them the only new Three-Key hotel in the Americas: Nekajui, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve.
Cayman’s three Keys leave it level with Grenada, St Lucia and Anguilla. St Barthélemy leads the Caribbean islands with nine, and Jamaica and the Turks and Caicos Islands hold five apiece.
The Seafire’s Michelin page observes that few would have predicted Kimpton, an American brand built on comfortable and reasonably priced boutique hotels, choosing Cayman for its first venture abroad.
It goes on to describe Grand Cayman as “a moneyed destination, in more ways than one”.
Ritz-Carlton and Palm Heights retain their Keys
Both of Cayman’s original Key holders have kept their single Key for a second year, and Michelin’s inspectors are no less complimentary this time round.
The Ritz-Carlton covers 144 acres between the sea and the lagoon and has 365 rooms. Michelin judges it “unapologetically luxe, but without lapsing into ostentatiousness”.
When the resort won its first Key last year, Cynthia Boyett, director of sales and marketing at The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman, said that after its 2021 reimagining, “we set out to create an experience defined by exacting standards of hospitality”.
Palm Heights, an all-suite property of 52 rooms, is cast as evidence of a more fashion-conscious Cayman, and the guide suggests it would put many Miami Beach boutiques in the shade.
Cayman welcomed 27,445 stayover visitors in August, 9.2% more than a year earlier, extending the run of year-on-year growth to ten months. Arrivals for the first eight months reached 361,192, up 11% on the same period of 2025.
Across January to August, hotel occupancy rose by 6.2 percentage points, average daily rates climbed 6% and revenue per available room jumped 16.4%, according to hotel data firm STR. Room revenue was 18.5% higher than a year earlier.
Gary Rutty, deputy premier and minister for tourism and trade development, said the gains in occupancy and room revenue were “giving entrepreneurs the confidence to continue investing in the Cayman Islands”.
