november-2012

18
the plaza
In a city jostling with iconic views and
Fifth Avenue at Central Park buildings, the grand old Plaza, sitting
South, New York, 10019 on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Central
+1 212 759 3000
Park, is assured of its position thanks to
fairmont.com
a combination of glorious architecture, a
serious reputation for old-school glamour
and myriad cameos in films and TV series.
words maggie fairbairn
It was here that Barbra Streisand said
goodbye to Robert Redford in The Way We Were, and where Carrie
walked away from Big the day he got engaged in Sex and the City.
The famous Oak Room bar overlooking the park may no longer
play host to the stars who defined the sharp-suited/lipstick
glamour of the Mad Men age, but when it reopens shortly, it will
once again attract the great and good of NYC for cocktails.
The hotel opened in 1907 during the city’s Gilded Age, and while
tradition has given way to the 21st century in some respects (there
are iPads in every room), the décor remains resolutely Louis XV
in style. It’s perhaps a little incongruous in the middle of this fastpaced,
über-modern city, but of course this is what makes the
november 2012
sleep
presidential luxury in brussels, art nouveau elegance in budapest and uptown new york style
hotel amigo
It might have a curious name, but
Rue de l’Amigo 3, Brussels Hotel Amigo has quite some pedigree.
+32 2 547 4747
A former prison, the Renaissance-era
hotelamigo.com
red-brick building was occupied by the
Spanish who mistook the old Flemish
word for prison and dubbed it “friend”
into their native lingo.
words clodagh kinsella
These days, now run by the slick
Rocco Forte Hotels, the Amigo isn’t short of friends. Its generous
rooms and 19 suites offer a contemporary neutral palette, courtesy
of Sir Rocco’s sister Olga Polizzi, while mosaic bathrooms and
ponderous Old Masters add to the unmistakable sense of luxury.
The Magritte Suite, a candy-striped 90 square-metre pad paying
homage to the Belgian Surrealist, boasts a rather more eye-popping
décor. Beyond myriad original prints and a surreal sculpture of a
wooden apple, the roomy lounge overlooks the Grand Place and its
twinkling stone spires.
The Amigo has become the default home from home for touring
VIPs, and in the suite’s bedroom, a signed CD collection somehow
manages to reconcile The Sex Pistols, Roxy Music and Kylie with a
more cerebral regular being French philosopher Bernard Henri-Lévy.
Downstairs, the Italian restaurant Bocconi buzzes with couples
and Eurocrats on the company dime. Co-devised by star chef Fulvio
Pierangelini, an interesting menu features dishes like rack of lamb
and caponata. Turn in with one of the Everyman editions in the
suite’s impressive library: F Scott Fitzgerald seems suitably swish.
Enjoy the Presidential Suite René Magritte at €3,500 per night;
double rooms from €660.
Plaza special. The grand ballroom is the stuff of fairytale endings
(Catherine Zeta Jones found hers here with Michael Douglas); the
jazz-age Palm Court is the place to take afternoon tea, and little girls
will be enchanted by the Eloise shop in the lower-ground shopping
concourse. Slightly older girls will find just as much to delight
in at the Caudalie spa. Rooms from $995 (€768) per night.
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