Hotel G

Hotel description

If you accept the premise that this is China’s century (and we’re all just living in it) then logically one inescapable conclusion follows: they’re going to need a lot more boutique hotels. This, obviously, is what the Hotel G is for: a new 110-room boutique in the hip-yet-luxurious mode, located in the nightlife and entertainment district of Sanlitun, with three restaurants and a lobby café of its own — just the sort of hotel-as-social-center that every cosmopolitan city needs.

This being Beijing, it’s a new build, albeit one with a groovy Sixties-luxe theme in its interiors, alongside some contemporary loft style and some pronounced Chinese details. Forget clichéd red silk though; here the colors are cool and muted, in greys, blues and browns. Plasma TVs are standard, as are iPod docks, both more or less necessities in the increasingly tech-driven boutique hotel world.

Restaurants include the Scarlett and the North-African/Mediterranean Gilt, both worthy culinary options and lively nightspots to boot. And for winding down there’s a sixth-floor “urban retreat” — not quite a spa, but a lounge at least, with a garden, Jacuzzis, and a gym. Expect to see more like this in Beijing in the coming years.