Once again, 60 Thompsonhas opened its rooftop bar A60 for the warm-weather seasons. Remember now, the rooftop is only open for hotel guests and members with limited-edition key cards.
So unless you are a member of this snotty card-carrying group your best bet for hanging out on A60 is to book a room.
We checked the rates for tonight and both the hotel website and Quikbook have rates of $539 available. Is it worth it? Probably not. It's not like they are giving out free drinks too. But if you were planning on staying at 60 Thompson anyways this summer, then it's an added bonus for you and however many friends you can hand out a room key to.
A super secret Hotel Maven inquired about booking a room at the Thompson LES on the premise that he heard the place would be opening soon, actually no later than June 2.
But now he will have to wait a little longer. Here's the response that he received from the hotel about making a reservation:
Thank you for your interest in Thompson LES. We hope to open the hotel in July of this year and we are currently accepting reservations starting July 15 via our website: www.thompsonhotels.com.
We would be happy to add you to our mailing list, so that we may inform you of hotel openings and other special offerings.
So there you have it. The hotel will be opening July 15th. No word on any special introductory rate but the past three new Thompson Hotels--Donovan, Gild Hall and Six Columbus--all offered discounted rates via Quikbook so we bet you can score some deals on that site.
Pretty much all we've ever cared about in the opening of the Donovan House, the newest hotel from Thompson Hotels in D.C., is what the heck these cocoon spiral showers look like and how they work.
In the first extensive review of the hotel, which we got from Hotel Maven Flying Mermaid, we learned a lot about the property but nothing really about this "exotic" shower.
Now thanks to Scott Nash, we have some great photos and a helpful diagram of how it works:
If you looked down at the Cocoon shower, it would look like this.
· 1: The shower head is here, built in flush to the ceiling. · 2: Soap shelf · 3: On/off · 4: No door, but there's a lip to keep the water from running out. Unfortunately, water does tend to pool here, so if you're not careful you end up stepping in cold water when you're done.
Thanks Scott, now we can sleep at night!
So far, the Donovan House has gotten some decent reviews--decent for a hotel that's still in a soft-opening phase. Of course, the Blackbook-Thompson Hotels love affair continues with Blackbook's recent post on the new hotel saying, "[I]f anyone can get the capital grooving, it’s unquestionably that world leader of fashionable hotel-ing himself, Jason Pomeranc."
Jason, our Groove Meters are on. We're watching you.
The Bond Street sushi restaurant inside the Thompson Beverly Hills received zero stars and zero love from LA Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila.
Much like the hotel review from her counterpart Valli Herman, Virbila liked the Dodd Mitchell design. This place used to be a crappy Best Western and now it strikes the right notes with the trendy Hollywood people looking to be seen. Yet there's something lacking on the inside at Bond Street.
For instance, Virbila recommends staying away from the raw fish...in a sushi restaurant! The scallop carpaccio makes her want to "scrub off my tongue." And there's more. In Virbila's words:
I'd previously ordered the marinated tuna -- two cubes of raw tuna coated with Maytag blue cheese. I thought it was possibly one of the worst sushi experiments I'd ever tasted but wanted to see what my dining companions thought, so I order it without cluing anybody in. One friend pops a piece in his mouth and then spits it out in his napkin -- What? Blue cheese with raw fish? -- making a face.
But that's not the only such innovation. There's goat cheese crab cakes, a gooey mix of cheese with shredded crabmeat rolled in crushed rice crackers. This is equally awful, and without the lift of pristinely fresh crab.
Virbila has some kinder words for the entrees and vegetable dishes like chef Nakahara's signature arugula crispy potato roll. But with prices so expensive "$12 for two very small pieces of big eye tuna, or sweet shrimp sushi" and a scene where people are only there to be seen, this is a sushi joint and possibly a hotel to skip.
The Gansevoort South will be getting another boutique hotel competitor soon. Already next door to the under-construction W South Beach, the Gansevoort will have to fight for guests with a planned 7-story development project across the street.
The Ankara project was supposed to be a condo development but now its developers want to put in a hotel and guess who they have been talking with? Miami Beach USA blog has this report:
"We have had several conversations with Thompson Hotels out of New York which we are hopeful to conclude," stated an attorney representing the project at a recent Board of Adjustments hearing.
The Ankara has had a few discussions with other hotel management companies but this one sounds the most promising.
Jason Pomeranc and co. were once the management company for the Sagamore Hotel but that ended pretty badly and Thompson Hotels haven't been back in Miami since. Let's hope they fare better this time around.
Our hotel mavens must be loving the Donovan House in Washington, DC.
Flickr member ScottMichaelNash dropped in a few photos of the hotel into our Flickr pool, including this shot of the bed. Just in case you were wondering: that bear is NOT included.
Everyone's been talking about it, so we finally went to look at Gild Hall, the new boutique property from Thompson Hotels, tucked away on an oblique corner in the historic Wall Street district. Hard to find even for those who live there, out-of-town guests might need GPS to check in.
The lobby is a "wow." Like a charming cozy little cabin retreat, it features interior wood accents, comfy leather couches, chairs, and bench seating, a knock out chandelier (either mock-wood branches or deer antlers, we weren't sure), table-top games, and a tiny but ultra-friendly front desk. The leather rhino in one corner was a real conversation piece.
More news on the Thompson Hotel front. The Thompson LES Hotel will get a Pan-Asian restaurant from Susur Lee, considered Toronto's Rock Star Chef for his namesake restaurant, Susur.
And the Thompson Hotel peeps must be paying him good. Lee is closing down his fancy Toronto shop to move to NYC and open a restaurant inside Thompson LES. (His casual restaurant, Lee, will remain.) Here's what Lee and the National Post had to say about the project:
"Jason Pomeranc is great," he tells me, referring to the cool-dude hotel warrior who is considered by many as the "next Ian Schrager," and the one behind this up-and-coming crash pad. Called the "thinking person's sex symbol" by Vanity Fair recently, he's the chap responsible for the ever-popular 60 Thompson in New York's Soho District as well as the re-charged Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, among other properties.
Interestingly, Susur Lee comes from Toronto where Thompson Hotels is also opening The Thompson Toronto. Maybe he'll return to the city then. He's not saying anything for sure now.
As for the restaurant inside Thompson LES, that isn't expected until September's Fashion Week. Meanwhile the hotel is now set for a June 2 opening.
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by juliana
