Hotel du Vin
Brighton
(01273 718588)
Doubles £115-£185; continental breakfast £9.50; full English £13.50
For years, people wanting a short break in Brighton have had two main choices:the lacy curtained B&Bs with the 'no vacancy' signs, or the big, ugly conference hotels. If you've ever tried booking one of the few boutique hotels such as the Pelirocco, Blanch House or Hotel Nineteen, you'll know you have to book months ahead to get in because they offer so few rooms and demand is high.
Hence the excitement surrounding the opening of a 37-room Hotel du Vin last month. As fans of this small hotel group know, du Vin spells great food, great wine and great big beds. Located on Ship Street at the south end of the Lanes, the hotel is a stone's throw from the seafront.
Our corner room (named after the champagne, Gosset) certainly had the wowfactor: not one but two free-standing, cast-iron roll-top baths sit side by side facing windows looking on to a sliver of sea. The room is contemporary without being off-puttingly cool - white linens, dark wooden floors, ship-style panelling and an enormous, pocket-sprung bed.
Notices tell you to 'feel free to take the toiletries home' (rather defeats the thrill of pinching them!), and there's proper coffee with a cafetière in the cupboard and fresh milk in the fridge. I read in the room notes that you can wear what you like to the bistro downstairs and was tempted to go down in my slob gear. Thank God I didn't. The bar and bistro were heaving with bon viveurs of all ages, dressed all sparkling and shiny, quaffing champagne and wine.
Dinner was sensational: seared peppered organic salmon with gribiche potatoes for him; foie gras and chicken liver parfait for me (both £6.50 each). These were followed by loin of venison with celeriac puree and chestnuts (£17).
Corinne, the French sommelier, helps you plough through the wine list - 650 altogether, including a vast array by the glass, which is great if you're both eating different food. Decor-wise, the bistro is a bit on the Café Rouge side (why plastic grapes on the windows?), but the bar is inviting and fun with huge leather sofas and a buzz. There's a billiard table in a gallery above.
Breakfast is served until a civilised 11am next morning and, again, the food is a gastro-fest - big, freshly chopped, exotic fruit salads, organic sausages, 'award-winning' black pudding and massive crusty croissants.
We got chatting to three generations of a Brummie/Danish family at the next table,enjoying a 24-hour reunion.'The Birmingham Hotel du Vin is so good, we just knew this would be too,' they gushed. It was difficult not to share their enthusiasm.
Jeannette Hyde
Rick's
Edinburgh
(0131 622 7800)
Doubles from £117.50 per night. Breakfast from £1.65 for toasted bagels to £6.85 for mixed grill.
Rick's is not, strictly speaking, a hotel, but a restaurant with rooms. The idea of rooms above a restaurant conjures up a picture of an olde country tavern, however, and chic Rick's is far from it. Nor does it have anything to do with the bar from Casablanca. Instead it's a perfect marriage of a groovy restaurant with even groovier rooms.
There are only 10 rooms, all situated far enough away from the restaurant and heaving bar to be undisturbed by the noise of a couple of hundred or so sociable Edinburghers. The rooms are all beautifully fitted out, and though they're not large they're so comfortable and aesthetically pleasing it's a real trial to drag yourself out of bed.
The walls are the palest of pale lilac, and a lilac starburst pattern is sprinkled over the butterscotch velvet cushions and curtains. The in-room entertainment is another impediment to getting out and exploring all the history Edinburgh has to offer. Who needs castles when you can snuggle up in a purple angora blanket and watch a DVD, or listen to a CD from the library at reception? The reasonably priced minibar has all the usual fare, as well as a disposable camera, condoms and, rather spectacularly, Tunnocks teacakes.
When you do eventually stir, it's definitely worth visiting the restaurant. As well as great cocktails to kick the evening off, the menu is full of well-rounded treats. My tuna on coriander mash was near perfect, and a dish of warm cherries in kirsch with vanilla ice cream was the best pudding I 've ever had.
The restaurant's atmosphere is not for the faint of heart, however. It's very noisy and vibrant, which will suit some people down to the ground, but may drive others insane.
Rick's might want to consider a ban on hen and stag nights - there are really only so many plastic penises a person can look at while eating - but otherwise, it's great fun.
An enormous advantage of having a destination restaurant downstairs is that it serves breakfast all day at weekends, so there's no uncivilised dash for a 10am finish.
Rick's is a great combination of elements; much more low key than a full-scale hotel, but you still feel very well looked after. And the best part is, you don't have to travel far after dinner to go to bed.
Dee O 'Connell
Alias Hotel Rossetti
Manchester
(0161 247 7744)
Doubles from £95. Continental breakfast, £8.50; full English, £13.50.
It's like a large student house for rich and lazy grown-ups, with service. Stepping into the forbidding baroque sandstone-and-brick Hotel Rossetti you are faced with two full-size dummies sporting Gareth Gates haircuts (the kind of thing you might bring back as a souvenir from a student drinking spree), guarding the entrance to the brass-and pine-clad restaurant beyond.In the lobby, guests smoke and read newspapers beneath a vast, glowing suspended globe as an art-house film plays on a video wall.
Though it has only been open for six weeks, the hotel's quirky line in interior design is so artfully disjointed it somehow sets you at ease. The decor is a mixture of classical and modern. Plump purple sofas with leopardskin cushions rest on parquet floors, vintage Jimi Hendrix gig posters sit next to encyclopedic botany diagrams of root vegetables. Thankfully absent is the studied self-consciousness of either the chintzy classic or trendy 'design' hotel.
In the bedroom there's enough shelf space for a lifetime's possessions - as if you're moving in. The silver bin and mirror,both with angled bases,send back a lopsided reflection that makes you feel you're going to slide out of the king-sized,goosedown bed.Deluge showers make washing a lot easier than it was at uni. And TVs with DVD players allow you to borrow from the hotel's extensive library, or play CDs - if you remember to bring them.
There 's a kitchenette on every floor with tea, coffee, milk, cereal and juice freely available to those who don't mind serving themselves, extending the feeling of staying in an opulent, stylish student house - but with gourmet chefs. But if you want a cooked breakfast downstairs, Cafe Paradiso offers excellent food.
The evening menu ranges from slow-roast ginger-glazed suckling pig to traditional neapolitan pizza - and a hearty wine list. The Béarnaise sauce is a testament to the kitchen staff's skill.
Downstairs is the Basement, with booths, sofas, a sunken dance floor, cocktails and live music at weekends - ranging from modern jazz to a Mancunian Sinatra and Martin tribute duo. It aims to be a hotspot for the locals, so lazy hotel residents can have their nightlife brought to them, even though the hotel's location (800 metres from Piccadilly Station and 1km from either the town centre or the bars and clubs of Canal Street) means that little effort is needed to reach Manchester's museums, shops, restaurants and 'scene'. It 's just that at the Rossetti, a little effort often feels too much.
Tom Templeton
Quebecs
Leeds
(0113 244 8989)
Doubles from £125 per night for a standard room, to £250 for a suite. At weekends, breakfast is included. Weekday continental breakfast costs £9.50; full English, £12.50.
It would be possible to visit Quebecs, Leeds's newest townhouse hotel,and never leave the room. Barely get out of bed, in fact.The octagonal room, with its kooky porthole windows, had more mod cons than my two-bedroom house in London. In the wardrobe: hairdryer, iron, trouser press and golfing umbrella. Molton Brown hair conditioner and body lotion in the bathroom (next to the heated mirror - which doesn 't steam up - and high-tech power shower). A glass of decent Australian red? Look no further than the well-stocked mini-bar. Some lounge music? Just turn on the sleek CD player and call reception for a selection of its 200 albums. Peckish? There are sweets on the side, or ring for 24-hour room service.
This was formerly the site of the Leeds and County Liberal Club, but a £6 million transformation of the handsome, red-stone Victorian building has given Leeds a smart boutique hotel two minutes from the city's train station, with the feel of a majestic cruise liner that has just had the decorators in.
Because there isn't a hotel restaurant or bar (though there are panelled drawing rooms with drinks trays and honesty bar notebooks), the atmosphere is one of secluded calm in the middle of a buzzing city. I imagined we were the only guests staying in the 45 bedrooms. It was like house-sitting in someone else's posh home while they were on holiday.
At breakfast on Sunday morning I was amazed to find the sunny conservatory room packed with people eating fresh raspberries, crispy bacon and pain au chocolat. Had they all been lounging about the room, sampling the minibar and saying, 'we really must have a look around Leeds... it 's meant to be fantastic?' too?
As it turned out, Leeds is indeed fantastic. When we finally managed to wrench ourselves away from the hotel, we discovered we were only five minutes' walk from the city's well-heeled high street.
Harvey Nichols opened a Leeds branch six years ago, and with all the chains near each other - from Habitat to Zara, Jigsaw to Office - it's an incredibly stress-free way to shop.
On Sunday we walked along the canal, where trendy loft developments give way to countryside, and fishermen sit on the banks with their long-wave radios and sandwiches wrapped in foil.
But it wasn't long before room-sickness kicked in (symptoms:irrational longing to lie down on crisp Egyptian cotton sheets), and we were back at Quebecs, our new home from home.
Louise France
Malmaison
Birmingham
(0121 246 500)
Doubles £125, suites from £160. Continental breakfast £8.75, full English £10.75.
Let 's go away for the weekend. Great! To Birmingham. Uh-huh. I've fixed up a place to stay. It used to be a postal sorting office but it's now a shopping centre, and there 's a flyover just outside. Er, right... I didn't really sell it to you,did I? But what if you knew the hotel was a Malmaison?
The Mailbox, where Malmaison is installed, is the latest step in Birmingham's renaissance.The ex-industrial building is now filled with apartments and smart shops including a Harvey Nichols, and it sits halfway - 10 minutes' walk - between city centre and Brindley Place, the canalside nightlife hub. Inside the hotel, all is elegant,stylish calm. Staff are welcoming,relaxed and evidently proud of their new creation. Public areas in cream and brown ease you into the mood, with attention to detail evident in occasional touches, fixtures and fittings.
Once in your room you know you've landed somewhere special. Malmaison prides itself on providing great beds - and they really are: high, wide, firm and furnished to tempt you into luxuriating there for the whole of your stay. You needn't stir if you like the idea of just watching the widescreen telly or listening to a CD while you indulge in tasty room-service sandwiches.
Do venture out, though, at least as far as the bar and brasserie. Although it has only been open a few weeks, there's already a buzz about the place. The chatter of friends gathering for drinks and cocktails creates an infectious atmosphere that carries across the airy space to the diners. French-style food is well presented, although the menu is a bit unadventurous.
It should not come as a surprise that Malmaison chose Birmingham for its latest venture, though it's hardly the city to set label-conscious pulses racing. When Malmaison opened just under a decade ago in Edinburgh, it chose the unloved port of Leith. Now that's a happening area.
With 189 rooms and a spa due to open in January, this is the biggest development Malmaison has undertaken, and while the weekend will no doubt see it filled with leisure-seekers, it will rely heavily on business traffic during the week. Only time will tell whether marrying the desires of the two kinds of client takes the edge off the laidback style. But as the company points out, today's business customer is tomorrow's returning weekender. And at value prices, it'd be a shame not to go.
Paul Simon
Myhotel
Chelsea
(020 7225 7500)
Doubles £185-£205; continental breakfast £12; English £15.
You can picture the scene: hospitality people scratching their heads, wondering how to make their little London hotel more interesting. 'I'm thinking feng shui... Botox injections... modern country home...'
Hence a dreary, brick 45-room property around the back of the Fulham Road - with narrow corridors, a small entrance and unimposing reception - has been transformed into a 'well-being' Myhotel.
What instantly makes an impression is the intimacy of the place, where you are treated like an individual rather than a statistic. All your allergies, dietary requirements and musical tastes are recorded and catered for in advance.
Our aromatherapy-scented room was inviting, featuring a big bed with white squishy duvet and lots of pillows, and a leather sofa facing - the best bit - a flat-screen, 22-inch TV. There was a smaller TV near the bed, but it was too small to enjoy from there, so rather a waste of time.
You can borrow DVDs and CDs from the conservatory, where free soft drinks and internet service are available. We retired to the sofa with Monsters Inc and called room service, rather than eating in the bar (there's no full restaurant).
The fresh caesar salad for £5.50 came, to our surprise,in main-course size. Dish of the day, linguine carbonara for £7.95, was delicious, and the huge crème brûlée (£4.50) was top restaurant standard. It made a nice change from the usual central London reheated room-service rip-off.
The well-being concept might not be everyone's cup of herbal tea. The mini bar is more well-being than well-stocked,with fruit drinks and one lonely bottle of champagne.There's an Aveda spa room, and a Botox specialist can come to your room to inject away those laughter lines.
I'd recommend this hotel over some of its more famous rivals - the service is quick, the rooms are comfy and it isn't overpriced. But forget the feng shui. Couldn't we have the big TV on a swivel to watch in bed? That would really be the business.
Jeannette Hyde
