Soup service at Ritz-Carlton Almaty
Simply Sunday. Differentiation is the little things that you remember when travelling – like the three flowers, instead of the usual one, in the washroom on my British Airways flight back from Almaty. Differentiation is staying in any Peninsula hotel, ordering room service and it comes with the check hidden in a stylish envelope. Raymond Bickson, when he was GM of The Mark in New York, started the idea of having your room number already written on laundry lists, to save you, the guest, having to remember your number and then write it down, and laundry at his hotel then, and at the hotels he now runs (Tajs, around the world) laundry is often returned in a linen-lined basket with a flower on top.
Differentiation to this particular traveller, doing 300-plus nights on the road, every year, is elegance. At Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues, Geneva, there are real linen coasters with the glasses in the minibars (which have whole bottles of Hendrick’s Gin). I loved the way soup at LT Bar and Grill at the spiffing new Ritz-Carlton Almaty comes with the bits already in the bowl, and then the broth is poured over. OH so elegant. I would love all luxury hotels to take note.
