Arrival

My driver was standing at the arrivals barrier. He already had the flight number, the surname and the bag count, and he said good morning as though he had collected me a dozen times before. That is the first thing to understand about The Peninsula. The performance starts a forty-minute drive from the building.

The car was a Phantom Extended Wheelbase in Peninsula Green, the hotel’s own colour, with the crest of The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels on the rear door. Chilled water in the console; curtains on the rear glass that draw at the touch of a switch. I spent the run over the Tsing Ma Bridge doing what everyone does in that car, which is pressing buttons to see what they do, then pretending I had not.

The fleet is not a marketing exercise. The green belongs to the hotel and the cars are ordered in batches rather than one at a time; the doorman told me they have been buying Rolls-Royces since the 1970s and have never seriously considered anything else. The one to look for sits at the front of the driveway most mornings, a pre-war Phantom kept in better condition than most cars a fraction of its age.

You pull up past the fountain into a colonnade of page boys in white, and the doors open before the car has settled. We were greeted at the door by name, and moved to our ready-room for check-in– upstairs, in the room, with full tea. Equal to the best hotel arrival of my life and it starts the stay with a feeling of harmony.

The lobby is the finest room in Hong Kong and it does not belong to the hotel’s guests. Between two and six in the afternoon it belongs to everyone: the queue for tea forms before service opens, snakes past the columns and does not disappear until closing. Reservations are not taken.

Gilt ceilings, palms, a string quartet on the mezzanine, a hundred people photographing a tiered stand, and one man photographing the hundred people. I joined the line on the first day at ten to two and sat by twenty past, which is a good outcome. If the host tells you the wait is long, supposedly Felix on the 28th floor serves a version of the tea with the harbour in the window and no queue at all. Felix was just cocktails for me later. The scones are the same. The room is not, and I would take the lobby every time if I had the afternoon to spend.

The performance starts a forty-minute drive from the building.

The room

I was in the Tower, high enough that the window wall framed Hong Kong Island end to end. The 1928 building has the taller ceilings and the better bones, but its rooms look over Salisbury Road and the shopping streets. If the harbour is why you are coming, take the Tower and the highest floor they will give you (or Rosewood…).

The room is a study in restraint that hides an absurd amount of engineering. Three tablets control everything, preset in a long list of languages: lights, curtains, temperature, the television, room service, spa bookings, the weather, your flight status. What makes them work is that they stay out of the way until you want them.

The details that stay with you are smaller. A valet box beside the door with a hatch on each side, so the newspaper and the pressed shirts arrive without anyone knocking. A vanity mirror that rises out of the dressing table at the touch of a button and vanishes again. A slot for shoes that need shining. A nail dryer built into the vanity, which I laughed at on day one and used on day two. Nespresso machine, Dyson dryer, a proper Chinese tea set, Evian on the tray.

The bathroom is marble on every surface: a deep tub at the glass, a television set into the mirror above it, a separate shower and a separate WC. Bath salts appear at turndown, and so does something from the bakery. I’m a sucker for the see and be seen bathtub and this was one of my all-time favorites.

At eight each evening the Symphony of Lights runs across the harbour, and you can watch the whole thing from the bed without moving. I did.

Noted

Observed on the stay, not measured.

What	Checked on the stay
Wi-Fi speed	Fast, and it held across three days
Noise	Silent inside; faint ferry horns around 6am
Bed	King, medium-firm, four pillow options on the tablet
Water pressure	Strong; hot almost at once
Air conditioning	Quiet, holds the set temperature overnight
Blackout curtains	Full, motorised, no light gap
Lift wait	Never waited

Eating

Six restaurants and bars, several of which people cross the harbour for.

The Verandah does breakfast, and it is worth having it included. The buffet runs a noodle station cooked to order, congee, dim sum, a Japanese section, an Indian section and the full European spread. GREAT BREAKFAST.

Spring Moon is a formal bite but go for lunch if you need. Refined Cantonese, a Michelin star, a tea master who will talk you through the list, and an XO sauce the hotel now sells by the jar. Order the sauce with anything. Though wonderful in setting, two of the dishes were a miss so be careful there with you ordering. They must film movies here though- it is indeed a classy period film- beauties and business men abound.

Gaddi’s is the grandest and most formal of the rooms, and carries it without apology. Elegant attire, and they mean it. Felix, on the 28th floor, is a Philippe Starck interior that has aged into something close to camp, in the best way; go for the view and a drink before dinner elsewhere.

Kushiro is downstairs, and it is the one to book if you only have one night. The concierge found me an omakase seat the same day I asked. Sake and sushi paired course by course, including uni auctioned in Japan that morning. If you care about sushi, do not leave the city without eating here. Just note – a fellow diner thought it was too much show and questioned why they need to brag about the uni auction. My mouth didn’t question its rank though- delicious!

Spa and pool

The spa is big and it books out, so reserve before you arrive. The pool is the showpiece: a Roman bath in style, colonnaded, with friezes and a wall of glass over the harbour. This is the kind of pool people mention when you say you are going to the hotel. Happened in Fiji. There is a firm no-photography sign, which is the correct policy and also the reason you have never seen a good picture of it.

The gym is well equipped and plain. Everything works; nothing in it was designed to be looked at.

Service moments

The service here is the product, and it is the least photographable thing about the place. What I can offer instead is a list.

The driver who was plainly happy. The check-in that happened over tea in the room rather than at a desk. The doorman who tells the story of the old Phantom as if for the first time. The valet hatch, which meant three days passed without a knock at the door. The concierge who produced a same-day seat at Kushiro as though it were nothing. He sent us to great places for watches and shoes, again seemingly content with his job. Turndown that came with bath salts and a pastry, at the hour I had gone down to dinner and not a minute before, which means somebody was watching the lift, and I have decided to find that reassuring.

Who it is for, and who it is not

Through the hotel none of it is showy. Almost all of it happened without my asking, which is the point.

Come if this is your first visit to Hong Kong, if the trip is an occasion, or if you want the lobby, the harbour and the car in the same building. Come if you would rather be looked after than left alone, and if you can give an afternoon to a queue for the pleasure of the room at the end of it.

Look elsewhere if the room itself is what you are paying for. The Rosewood, ten minutes’ walk along the waterfront, has the better bling with the better view, and I have set the two side by side in Peninsula or Rosewood. Look elsewhere too if you want the harbour without Kowloon; the Island side is a different city and a different stay and I shan’t speak to that.

See the full set: The Peninsula, Hong Kong — in frames. More Hong Kong: Rosewood, Hong Kong.