What’s it like staying in the highest rooms in the world, atop the 480-metre The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong? Well, actually the top floor of the 118-storey beauty is wellness and eatertainment, so choose a 117th floor Club room. Splurge on The Ritz-Carlton Suite, #1720, which comes with dining for 10, a square jacuzzi tub that could fit four in comfort. You have a private sauna, and window seats that allow unrivalled views of Tsim Sha Tsui around to Macau.
The view is unique, but catch it, and photograph it, when you can. It could well be that you wake up in clouds, and spend day-long enveloped in whiteness. But who cares? There’s so much to do in this 312-room hotel, which is integral both with the International Commerce Centre ICC (headquarters of Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and more) and luxury-brand retail and the airport express.
It’s in the trendy West Kowloon district, which also includes the new M+ and Palace museums, both 10 minutes’ walk away. Right now, through 5th March, West Kowloon’s inaugural SerendiCity sees a myriad of multi-sensual experiences illuminating the area every evening.
Start your day, perhaps, on the hotel’s 118th floor, with a swim or Technogym workout: there’s an outside terrace well protected by high-security fencing. Breakfast in the 116th-floor Club Lounge, with plenty of copies of today’s best newspapers, including The New York Times. Go dimsum or eggs to order, super smoked salmon rather than avocado today. Cappuccino comes with The Ritz-Carlton’s signature lion logo on top.
Mainland Chinese are travelling again but interestingly rather than dining-Chinese they are opting for European – they have ‘had’ it with their local cuisine, it seems. It is also worth noting that young couples dining in the hotel’s 102nd floor Tosca di Angelo are not, as so often, glued to their devices: one theory is that Chef Angelo Agliano is so personable that customers feel beholden to give the food full intention.
His cuisine, he says, is the ensemble of his travels and moments with family and friends. The SPIN-designed kitchen has all-glass walls. Watch every minute, and then he pops out to deliver dishes personally.
Our table’s experience started with the opening of a bottle of La Spinetta Vigneto Campe Vursu 2006, Nebbiolo from Barolo. Home-made wholewheat sourdough decorated with real corn husks, came with four home-produced olive oils, minutely explained. Next came small spoons of flavoured tomato flesh, and one-bite canapés. There are two set menus, with or without paired wines, and à la carte.
Perhaps choose Egg-yolk ravioli with spinach and black truffle, followed by a Turbot fillet for two, presented whole in a copper pan and then served with greenbean purée and confit cherry tomatoes. Finish with a spoonful of irresistible panacotta icecream and a two-bite wrap of Cioccolato di Modica IGP. That’s one way to go.
Mary Gostelow publishes the daily girlahead.com, a weekly newswire Mary Gostelow’s Inner Circle, and a unique weekly 15-minute industry Mary Gostelow Girlahead Podcast, all part of Almont Global.
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