Flying high
The sheer friendliness and dedication at the Pan Pacific is so refreshing, writes Bernadette Fallon
Fourteen floors up is a great place to watch the sun rise over London, the light hitting the side of The Gherkin, the 18th tallest building in the city. This area hosts over 20 of London’s tallest structures and in fact, around the corner from here, I can see its earliest ‘skyscraper’, London’s tallest building for 250 years – St Paul’s Cathedral, built in 1710, 111 metres from ground to dome.
Nothing reached its dizzy heights (literally, have you ever stood on the outdoor terrace at the top of the dome?) until 1963, when it was overtaken by the Millbank Tower at 118 metres. Today London’s tallest building is The Shard, opened in 2012, 309m tall.
I could easily walk to them all from here, 14 floors up in a suite at the Pan Pacific, one of London’s newest hotels, just three weeks old when I visit. It’s also distinctive for being the Pan Pacific group’s first hotel in Europe and located at One Bishopsgate Plaza, no. 49 in London’s tallest buildings list.
It’s a soaring glass tower, with spectacular views – my fin-shaped bedroom, with thoughtfully-placed armchair in the point of the fin has uninterrupted views on both sides and is also a great place to watch the city light up at night. It’s all understated luxury and stylish craftmanship, no corners cut here. There are no corners at all in this suite in fact, with its elegantly curved walls, muted colours and big expanses of glass.
It feels like you’re in on some big secret in the infinity pool on the fourth floor, watching busy London doing its thing outside, blissfully unaware of me bobbing in the water behind the vast windows above. With so many hotel spas located deep underground, it’s a treat to stretch out on a luxury recliner in natural sunlight. If I was feeling more energetic, the gym next door has a digital wall to advise me on the best exercise positions as I work out, a sort of high-tech personal trainer. I turn over another page of my magazine and smile in the sun.
The Pan Pacific promises the ‘fusion of south-east Asian vibrancy with refined British elegance’. This probably explains why we’re offered a glass of English sparkling wine before dinner and the fact that many of the Asian ingredients on the menu are grown in Norfolk.
It also accounts for the fact that afternoon tea in The Orchid Lounge, this quintessentially British tradition, is given a total Asian makeover where
sandwiches are replaced with dim sum and scones scorned for bao buns. There’s more English sparkling wine to wash it all down and a hands-on tea menu where we sniff the fragrant leaves before making our choice.
But the ‘cakes’ – oh good God, the cakes. A team of patisserie chefs has coaxed chocolate, sponge, fondant, biscuit, cream and other sweet ingredients into objects so beautiful (free-standing Chinese kimono anyone?) that we demur slightly about eating them. For about 20 seconds. Then tuck in. With relish. The dinner menu is a homage to Singaporean food, with sharing platters featuring oriental duck and softshell crab, heritage dishes of native lobster, Singaporean seafood noodles and laksas. Seafood is big at Pan Pacific, crab and lobster also feature at breakfast, which offers one of the biggest hot food menus of any London hotel.
Is there anything more decadent than lobster omelette thermidor for breakfast? Turns out there is in fact. Lobster omelette thermidor served with a glass of champagne (plus fresh fruit and tea/coffee, yours for £55).
Dinner is washed down with a bottle
of Chinese riesling, and we clean our palates with fermented fizzy saki before exquisitely sculpted chocolate desserts. If you ever had a mind to steal away a group of patisserie chefs and install them in your kitchen, I’d strongly recommend you take these ones. But what was my favourite thing about the Pan Pacific? Was it the cocktails at Ginger Lily, where the head mixologist is almost moved to tears of passion as he talks us through his creations? Or the sauna sheets, weighted blankets and leg massagers I could have ordered to help me sleep better (the spa comes with its own Wellness Director who can advise on all of the above)? The Nespresso machine and Diptyque toiletries in the bedroom?
No, it was the staff. The sheer friendliness, helpfulness, dedication, knowledge and passion these people bring to their work is refreshing and a pleasure to be around. We were cossetted, informed, pampered, indulged, spoilt – and most of all, welcomed – for the whole weekend – though the view is pretty good as well.
It’s all understated luxury and stylish craftmanship, no corners cut here
Rooms at Pan Pacific London from £375 for a deluxe room; afternoon tea at The Orchid Lounge from £68 per person; more information and bookings at Panpacific.com