Bar Rouge, on a typical night
Accor’s tallest hotel, anywhere, is the 73-floor Swissôtel Stamford, a circular tower designed by I.M. Pei. This has, marsupial style, the integral Stamford Crest, and adjoins Fairmont Singapore. Atop the round tower is a three-floor eatertainment complex which includes Bar Rouge, on the 71st floor. Normally this is a hang-out for chic Singaporean fashionistas, and runs through to six a.m. Two nights ago it was, more sedately, the venue for Accor’s ILTM Asia Pacific party, hosted by Accor’s VP Luxury Sales (seen above, centre, with The Savoy’s Philip Barnes, left, and Singapore-based RVP Tom Meyer). The views, obviously, were amazing.
Night view from room 2854
The entire complex offers in all just over 2,000 rooms. To break this down, Singapore Stamford has 769 rooms, but amazingly manages to feel really intimate, to a large extent because of the people. 30-year veteran Eddy Tan, for instance, is the ultimate guest relations officer – she seems to know exactly what idiosyncracies go with which guest. She showed me up to 2854, a new room that brilliantly, and to me, uniquely, can be converted in a few minutes from sleeping to meeting room. It has a bright red Smeg-type refrigerator all ready and waiting.
Caprese, by Prego
But some things do not substantially change. Prego, the banana-shaped ground floor restaurant, runs from 6.30 a.m. right through the day and evening. I used to love the plain roast chicken with mashed potato, today I have changed to somewhat lighter fare, like perfect caprese followed by a Bistecca di Manzo. The menu is a simple full-colour A4-sized sheet of card, hams and other Italian products hang overhead and you feel Andrea Bocelli will start singing at any moment. Amazingly, the space also adapts to be a perfect breakfast venue – see one of the videos below.
GM Marcus Hanna
Marcus Hanna, GM of the whole complex, also wanted me to see the month-old Stamford Brasserie, another brilliant eating venue that is even more casual – it spreads out on to the pavement, and has a to-go grab-n-go counter. Added to the eating and drinking there is serious working out (is it true to say the seventh-eighth floor gym is the biggest of any hotel in Singapore?). Yes, another superlative for this complex, which is also part of Raffles City mega-shopping. There is not much missing at Swissotel Stamford, indeed, except that one increasingly-desirable word, TIME. AND NOW SEE VIDEOS OF A NEW ROOM, LOOKING OUT OF ITS OPEN WINDOW, AND PREGO AT BREAKFAST
