Nowhere Else Has Felt So Tactile and Textured

24 *** Saturday 12 October 2019 The Daily Telegraph The Daily Telegraph Saturday 12 October 2019 *** 25 HOTELSEEKER Expert reviews of the world’s great places to stay RETRO VIBE Mama Shelter London is part souped-up COLD COMFORTS steel girders, aluminium ventilation hostel and part The menu is a celebration of his pipes and exposed electrical wiring – boutique hotel Spanish roots and love of Mexico, combined with deep Philippe Starck featuring tacos, fre-cooked meats and armchairs, slick concrete walls and fsh and a £75 caviar tortilla. It’s pure Serta mattresses. This rural retreat, Seventies Tiki: jatoba wood, a rattan along with the Ranga and Torfus, ceiling, and macramé and beads completes a discernible route around in abundance. ‘Nowhere else has felt Iceland’s otherwise guesthouse- Whether the adjoining bar will saturated Golden Circle. compare to The Standard High Line’s Venture beyond Iceland’s south- “Boom Boom Room”, New York’s most west corner and luxury becomes exclusive club, remains to be seen, harder to fnd, apart from one although judging from the so tactile and textured’ obvious exception: Deplar Farm. INSIDE THE launch party, it looks likely. Situated in an often snow-packed EGG BOX It’s primed for a party, with valley, in the country’s isolated far The Standard shiny mint-green leather north, the 13-room converted sheep occupies a couches, blingy lights, farm has become renowned as one of silhouette adds an former Camden wraparound views and, to anywhere else in the world, that enter a well-documented boom the most exclusive heli-skiing interesting shape to the east Council building ahem, a glittering, gold Iceland’s new wave of was so tactile and textured. I wanted period – and it now accounts for 42 per retreats on earth. London skyline, with phallic sculpture as tall as to stroke every three-ton pillar of cent of the entire economy. But with Besides the thrill of of-piste gardens seemingly cut out a person. hotels combine luxury basalt, rap my knuckles against the rapid growth came a proliferation of adventuring, it also ofers kayaking, of foors seven, 25 and 36. And fnally, a similarly fun spot to 300-year-old recycled oak tabletops one-size-fts-all, mid-range horse riding and salmon fshing in I noticed locals in the brasserie for a stay (but with a much lower price and feel the snap of brittle cod skin guesthouses, often costing about £120 rivers so remote that they remain Friday-night dinner, 20-somethings point) has opened in the former RE with a sense of being crisps against the inside of my cheeks. a night. Not cheap by any standard, but largely unknown to the masses. Back pulling up seats at the bar, and a Hotel on Hackney Road in east “We consider what we’re doing here all too often their drab and prefab at base there’s a yoga studio, a flm resident moving in with a huge frame London. It’s a building with less embedded in raw nature. as anti-à la carte,” said Thorarinn rooms, produced quickly for the mass lounge, hot pools, treatment rooms through revolving doors with a dog in cultural cachet than The Standard, but Eggertsson, Torfus’s executive chef, market, ofered very little for travellers and a live-in sommelier. But it tow. Even more people will be focking no less signifcance for those who have Simon Parker checks in as he delivered a seared veal fllet who craved something better. certainly doesn’t come cheap – here after the opening of the headline lived through the gentrifcation of the specked with fakes of trufe snow. “For us, luxury means feeling nightly rates start at about £2,500 restaurant Allegra, which is on the neighbourhood. Mama Shelter London “We’ve actually banned the word embedded in nature – in a closed per person per night. seventh foor and focuses on farm-to- is another import, this time from lumes of dry ice ‘bufet’ entirely. Consider this more a community,” said Torfus’s owner, Deplar Farm has sat at the table cuisine. France (a co-founder was Philippe warped and knotted modern Viking dining experience, Alexandra Hoop – as we brushed our unequivocal zenith of the country’s If it wasn’t for Handelsman’s Starck), with outposts in cities such as over a pasture of characterised by smaller plates and hands through the wild Icelandic grass luxury revolution since its arrival in foresight, then the frst European LA and Rio de Janeiro. rocket, lamb’s lettuce multiple, interactive tastes.” that insulates the retreat’s 25 turf- 2016, but hot on its tail (in 2018) was HAYES AMIAND; LUKE FRANCIS outpost of The Standard – the Nineties It feels somewhere between a and chickpeas – like Think Nobu-meets-Noma, via the covered houses. “That means a gated the Retreat Hotel at the Blue and 2000s celebrity place-to-be-and- souped-up hostel and boutique hotel, miniature cirrus rich Icelandic fshing grounds of the world with a private restaurant.” Lagoon – just a 20-minute drive from NEW OPENINGS be-seen in NY, LA and Miami – might with oversized wicker lamps, Liberty clouds cloaking the North Atlantic. Thorarinn’s stomach- Kefavik International Airport. not have happened. It’s in King’s prints and shelves full of London- P mossy summit of a cuddling cuisine was the antithesis of Moss-green carpets, foor-to-ceiling Cross, inside the former 1974 Camden centric books, beaded masks and tabletop mountain. Meanwhile, the icy drizzle lashing horizontally windows and hunks of jagged lava City Council annexe on the busy animal-shaped ceramics. There’s a langoustines, soaking up to their against the panes just beyond my once again distort the separation Sky gardens, Brutalism Euston Road, dubbed by both lovers courtyard with a retractable roof, pinkish waists in rich garlic butter, plate. It was informal and flling, between outside and in. Even the and haters of the grid-like Brutalist perfect for sipping a When Ruby met basked beside fat-marbled slivers of abundant in umami – best eaten in cosy yoga studio and library look out structure as “the egg box”. Rooms Tommy tequila cocktail, and – the salmon sashimi. Surrounded on three woolly jumpers, thermals and slippers. on a jagged moat of cerulean cost from £199. best bit – Japanese-style karaoke sides by vast 16:9 widescreen Torfus feels like an exclusive geothermal salt water. and neon-lit karaoke Interior designer Shawn Hausman, rooms for rent in the basement, windows, cut into enormous hunks of Alpine chalet, a private Alaskan fshing The Retreat’s spa – carved into an creator of Manhattan’s Area nightclub complete with a photo booth and reclaimed Austrian pine, the Viking lodge or a boutique southern African 800-year-old lava fow – is the big and responsible for the legendary drinks on tap. Upstairs, the simple but long room – at the heart of Iceland’s safari camp. Its individual draw for both day and overnight Chateau Marmont, has remained stylish, retro-feel rooms – from £99 a brand-new Torfus Retreat, where I guesthouses, set across 124 grassy guests, plus private access to the A trio of imaginative new hotels is transforming London’s hotel respectful to the building’s history, night – are a quiet world away from was eating dinner – radiated a cosy acres, are unpretentious and homely, ANNA FJOLA Blue Lagoon. But without a doubt, imbuing the spirit of the Seventies downstairs. There is nothing better, candlelit hygge. with British-made Burlington it’s on the plate that this hotel excels. scene – and its skyline. Jade Conroy relishes high life in the city (note that Hausman also worked as a after hours of karaoke, than an MOUNTAIN Between dishes that bathrooms and recycled pine-slat It’s the dichotomy between climatic reindeer and pufn still draws on Often, tasting menus can be production assistant on Saturday Night (afordable) king-size bed and GRANDEUR sizzled, smoked and hissed, walls still faunting the burrows of harshness and comfy interiors that has ESSENTIALS Iceland’s self-sustainable culinary annoyingly eclectic – pretentious for his summer, I sang outposts of the V&A, Sadler’s Wells, Fever). The ground foor – blackout blinds. Deplar Farm, I couldn’t think of another thousands of woodworms. Perhaps the come to epitomise Iceland’s emerging heritage. Meanwhile, its recently the sake of simply showing of. At Nineties hits in a University College London and the home to the seasonal British VERTICAL below; and meal, or hotel that I’d been lambskin and horse-hide rugs aren’t to luxury hotel scene. And while it would Regent Holidays (020 redesigned Icelandic Suite has largely Moss Restaurant, however, its fve- neon-lit karaoke London College of Fashion. restaurant Isla, and buzzy LIVING For more hotel openings 360 Hotel, most modern be impossible to ignore the well- 7666 1290; regent-holidays. been carved out of shipwreck and seven-course food and wine room; I sipped It is a vision for “vertical living” by Double Standard bar – is The Stratford is in London, see: telegraph. above right tastes, but known Ion Adventure Hotel, which co.uk) ofers fy-drive mahogany and foreign hardwoods – pairings live up to the grandeur of margaritas in a developer Harry Handelsman of maximalist to the core, with a cool addition co.uk/tt-newlondonhotels nevertheless, sits on stilts above the lava-strewn holidays to all the hotels a nod to the south Icelandic tradition the epic surroundings. foliage-enclosed Manhattan Loft Corporation, who Memphis design movement to the east these are the sort Thingvellir National Park, the move mentioned.

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