Upon our visit last week to the excellent guests-only hotel pool and rooftop, ABH, at the Thompson Beverly Hills, we happened to notice something interesting in the ladies room.
Thompson-branded toilet paper.
It's subtle of course. The logo is merely imprinted on each square, making it just barely discernible to a hotel geek like ourselves. We're not sure if this special toilet paper is in all the guestrooms but it is in every stall in the rooftop restroom.
Yesterday we got an invite to check out the hotel guests-only rooftop pool and bar at Thompson Beverly Hills and since we've been waiting for this rooftop oasis since about February, we jumped at the chance to explore it.
ABH--"Above Beverly Hills"--officially opened in mid-June with a flashy party for Gucci attended by Rihanna. Since then, the rooftop--a joint partnership between Thompson Hotels and Bond Street Sushi--has been percolating with celeb guests like Britney Spears, Eva Longoria and David Beckham.
Rooftop pools have become a staple for Thompson Hotels. The A60 rooftop at 60 Thompson in Soho is a much sought-after venue for hotel guests and special card-carrying members. Donovan House in DC just opened their ADC rooftop over Memorial Weekend. And the upcoming Thompson LES and Thompson Toronto will feature rooftops areas as well.
The hotel will be hosting cocktail parties at the pool this weekend but the official opening will be on Monday. (Gotta love the Thompson Soft-Open Technique.)
One of those cocktail parties will actually be a Gucci party in honor of Rihanna and the Gucci Hysteria bags. Also expected are Camilla Belle, Minka Kelly, Becki Newton, Rashida Jones, Jacinda Barrett, Sophia Bush and Riley Keough.
No doubt Jason Pomeranc and co. won't be missing the opportunity to do some modelizing at their property this weekend.
Well it musta been a hit with rich tree huggers and romantics alike because the hotel is continuing the special menu and candlelight setting throughout the summer.
In honor of Earth Week, Chef de Cuisine Brian Moyers at The Blvd in the Beverly Wilshire, has prepared a three-course menu that is exclusively comprised of items from local and sustainable farmers. The special menu will debut on Friday, April 25, 2008 and continue to be offered every Friday through the end of summer.
The special menu offers five small courses at $85 and $135 with wine pairings. The BLVD restaurant is also offering wine and cheese pairings every Wednesday through the end of summer.
Of course, if you're interested in dining at CUT, the scene of so many celebrity power gatherings, make your reservation far in advance. Or else show up like we did at 6pm on a Friday and promise to be done in an hour and half. You'll surely get a table that way. Worse comes to worst, you can hit Sidebar.
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 New York Times' recent review of Thompson Beverly Hills seems a bit pre-emptive. Reporter Fred A. Bernstein's "bottom line" is that the hotel isn't cheap, but that the rooftop swimming pool, fitness center and bar may justify the price once those amenities open in April. Does that mean until then you'll just have to chance it and hope the hotel is as highly regarded as its New York counterpart?
That could be a big gamble, given how temperate Bernstein seems about the rest of the property. In short, the place is designed well and the staff is friendly, but the bathrooms are small and anything other than sushi at the hotel's Bond Street restaurant fails to impress.
Bernstein says rooms in the front of the building must contend with traffic noise from Wilshire Boulevard, but his room, No. 822, located in the back of the property, had a "spectacular" view of the Hollywood sign, downtown L.A. and the San Gabriel Mountains, which certainly sounds like a Killer View contender to us. Now, we're just waiting on that exclusive rootop.
Guess who dined at Cut last night at the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire? Yup. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. This time they brought along Oscar winner Forest Whitaker and his wife.
When TomKat is in Los Angeles, they probably eat at Cut once a week. We can't blame them as we've experienced Cut personally and it is pretty darn good.
We can only wonder what TomKat talks about with their dining partners. We'd like to think it's about making movies, raising children, and comparing private jets but we have a sneaking suspicion that the dreaded S word comes up too.
Is this how TomKat does it? Wows a couple with a fantastic meal by Wolfgang Puck and then surprises them with an E-meter reading?
At last the Thompson Beverly Hills has gotten an official review. Not that the reviews from our HotelMavens are any less official but we always like to see what the old standbys think. Thus, here's the LA Times review of the hotel from veteran reviewer Valli Herman.
Overall Herman liked the place...we think. Every positive was backed up by a negative. It's almost as if she was trying hard to like it but simple fundamental hotel stay necessities were not fulfilled.
Her biggest problem was with the noise:
Despite the two-year renovation, the expensively designed room still featured the original, flimsy sliding-glass door. Unless the soundproofing is improved, the hotel isn't a great buy....
I was given various explanations for the noise problem, including "we're still under renovation" and "we're hoping to double the glass next year" -- even though I was told the rooms were complete when I made my reservation.
For the record, Herman paid a special rate of $199 as part of the hotel's opening offers.
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by juliana
