Credo: Less Is More
By Anthony Lassman, Founder, Nota Bene -- HOTELS Magazine, 3/1/2005
In a quest to make their properties the last word in luxe, to stand out from the crowd, to—let’s face it—get talked about, hoteliers seem bent on introducing ever more preposterous extras and services.
Yet given the hundreds of decisions most of us take each day, we at NB are increasingly feeling we’ve had enough, and that perhaps the ultimate luxury one craves is a freedom from choice. We never thought we’d think this, but sometimes it’s rather a relief not to be given an option, to have someone else decide on your behalf.
Of course for this to work, guests have to have absolute confidence in what has been selected for them. It’s a way of thinking that’s been successfully adopted by Francis Ford Coppola at his two hotels in Belize (Blancaneaux and Turtle Inn). These aren’t luxurious resorts, but nor do they claim to be. There are no telephones (bar an antiquated ‘conch phone’—made from a conch, really; all very Lord of the Flies—though which you can summon room service), no televisions, videos or DVD players, certainly no wifi, no aircon, not even a swimming pool at Blancaneaux (what’s wrong with the river?)… There’s no great choice on the menu. Much of the food is grown organically on site, so a lot depends on what’s ready to pick. And the only wines available are those Coppola makes in Napa Valley (some of them great, some of them not so, but how lovely not to be faced with a wine list the size of telephone directory and an unctuous sommelier trying to intimidate us into choosing a hundred-dollar-plus bottle).
Yet for all these perceived deprivations, there is nevertheless a very real sense of perfection, that everything from the textiles and local artworks that decorate the guestrooms to the locally sourced soap to the confident, friendly and highly trained staff, is as good as it gets. You’re paying for someone’s impeccable taste and exacting standards, you’re paying someone else to choose for you, and that feels special. And very relaxing. After all, if we’re prepared to rely on stockbrokers to manage our portfolios and engage personal shoppers to pick out clothes for us in department stores, why shouldn’t we ask the same of hoteliers.
Of course, there are places where being offered something unexpected adds value, as it were. We love the fact at Esperanza, on Mexico’s Baja coast, they proffer a box of reading glasses along with the menu—just in case... And the pre-dinner glasses of champagne and canapés that appear uncalled for and as if by magic at cocktail hour on your veranda at the Prince Maurice in Mauritius. On the first evening it hadn’t occurred to us that that was just what we wanted just then, but as it turned out, it was. (Might be tough on recovering alcoholics, though.)
In a similar vein, we are intrigued by Sloom (which translates as ‘leisurely’), the ‘small, comfortable and expensive’ (their description) restaurant at the new MVRDV-designed Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam, where they’ve dispensed with the idea of a menu completely. The idea is that they’ll prepare whatever you like—though it sensibly strives to restrict your fancy to something that falls within ‘classic European cuisine’. If you’re not sure, your waiter will suggest something. In other words, this is a restaurant that manages simultaneously to offer all the choice in the world (within reason)—and none at all.
But what, we wonder, is the point of a hot-chocolate sommelier when all you want is a cup of hot chocolate? The Ritz-Carlton in Bachelor Gulch near Beaver Creek, Colorado, we’re thinking of you. By all means offer choice of hot drinks (though ‘Raspberry Truffle’, ‘Almond Joy’ and ‘Peppermint Patty’ don’t sound much like chocolate to us). Insist, if you will, on making Hershey’s available as well as Valrhona (actually, given the choice, we prefer Charbonnel and Walker), but why humiliate some poor staff member by making him pretend ‘expertise’ in the matter?
The same goes for water sommeliers. Last summer, the in-many-ways admirable Adlon in Berlin, in its self-styled ‘quest to offer the ultimate in luxury’, engaged one. Thus its ‘the sommelier will be delighted to assist guests in their choice… an exotic spring water with a delicate bouquet from Japan [Rokko No], or a full-bodied water from France’? The descriptions of the 42 different waters from 18 countries it sells are an object lesson in pretentiousness: we were especially amused by the fact that Châteldon from France, and a big seller in Berlin, was apparently Louis XIV’s preferred water. How many brands do you think they stocked at Versailles? And do you suppose there was a sommelier d’eau by royal appointment?
Flushed with pride in this novelty, the same hotel has recently appointed a tea sommelier, Kathleen Winkler, who, we’re assured was sent to Sri Lanka to perfect her knowledge and has passed exams in the subject. Maybe tea—like wine—is a complex and specialist subject of single estates and first growths, and we’re just being uncouth. But when all you want is a cup of tea… Oh please don’t make us choose.
And as for tanning butlers, such as they have introduced at the Ritz-Carlton South Beach in Miami? Trust us, we know the importance of sunscreen and which brands we favour. We don’t need advice from a jumped-up poolboy, however good he looks in trunks and a ‘holster’.
And then there’s the pillow menu, an innovation that has become almost standard in five-star hotels. We were almost tempted to request an organic millet pillow at the Plaza Athénée in Paris last time we stayed there, just to see what it was. But how to choose between it and the oreiller de beauté which promised some kind of morning radiance. Decisions, decisions. So we stuck with down that was already made up and just fine as it turned out.
But would there were a choice over the seven little lights that shone brightly in the room all night—on the television, on the telephones, on the air con, on the various light switches themselves to show them where you were. None could be extinguished, only masked (the moral of this is always to travel with Sellotape or plasters, better yet duct tape though that may not be practical). At least, in this case, we could see where the hotel was coming from, even if it irritated us (we’d rather they just offered optional nightlights or bedside torches). Why bother with shutters and padded silk curtains if you’re going to insist the room stays partially illuminated from within?
As light sleepers and occasional insomniacs, we’re not therefore opposed in principle to the idea of something to ‘help guests enjoy a perfect night’s rest’, such as the Rocco Forte Hotels’ Lowry in Manchester launched last year. But why call it the ‘Sleep Doctor Menu’, when all it actually involves is bedding, masks, ear-plugs, suggested spa treatments and hot drinks. Nothing very medical (or even potentially efficacious) there, we think.
Like its sister hotel, the Balmoral in Edinburgh, the Lowry also employs bath butlers (as far as we know a ‘sleep doctor’ incarnate isn’t actually on the payroll). We’re not sure who invented the idea of the bath butler—we suspect it might be One&Only, though maybe they just have butlers part of whose remit is bath-running. Still Rocco Forte has taken the idea and is running with it, offering a ‘Bath Time Menu’ that purports ‘to add an extra dimension’ to the experience of staying in a hotel. (Do they really think we have so little in our lives that having someone run us a bath excites us?) In case you were wondering, all a bath butler actually does is ‘run your bath at the ideal [his ideal, or yours, we wonder?] temperature and add your choice of Molton Brown bath-time products’, having first encouraged you to order something from the room-service canapés menu. ‘Which allows guests to indulge in chocolate-dipped strawberries and champagne.’ At bathtime! Yuk! But apparently, it’s the ‘definitive word’ in personal service.
Actually butlers in general we find rather an irritant. For what do they actually amount to beyond being staff members whose names you know and whose chief responsibility, at least in the tropics, is to trace your name in rose petals on the bed and sprinkle bougainvillaea blossoms about the bathroom?
It’s perfectly obvious why hotels introduce such gimmicks. It gives PRs something to issue press releases about, and journalists something to write about (and here we’re as guilty as the next publication), which publicises the hotel and, perhaps, sells rooms. But why pretend these are innovations in the name of luxury? When real luxury, at least as far as we’re concerned, is an opportunity to relax, to be relieved of worry and petty annoyances and irritations brought about by indecision. To be afforded privacy and quiet.
Above all we want first-rate staff, who are charming,
efficient, attentive but not overbearing, informed, can second-guess
our every need but are otherwise invisible. We want to be attended
to by people in whom we have confidence, a confidence that can free
us from trivial decision-making. What we absolutely don’t want,
ever, is have to hang around, unable to undress, while by some poor
embarrassed bath butler faffs about with wilting blossoms in the bathroom
waiting for the tub to fill
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