Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong

The Mandarin was to have been the Queen's Hotel. By August 1962 the name had gone, because the American public, who made up most of the colony's tourists, wanted something that sounded more exotic. They got The Mandarin. It opened on Connaught Road Central on 1 September 1963 as the tallest building in Hong Kong and the first hotel in Asia with a bath in every room. The interiors went to Don Ashton, art director on The Bridge on the River Kwai, so the lobby had a film designer before it had a guest. It was built beside the harbour. Reclamation has since moved the water several blocks off, though the Harbour View rooms still look across it to Kowloon. Some things have stayed put: the Captain's Bar, open since 1963, still serves its draught beer in silver tankards.

Recommended for anyone who wants the original Mandarin Oriental in the middle of Central, and for families content with connecting rooms and a babysitter, since there is no kids' club. Two of the city's best rides start a short walk from the door: the Star Ferry across to Kowloon, three minutes away, and the Peak Tram up the hill, eight minutes to its lower terminus. Afternoon tea in the Clipper Lounge has been served since 1963, with the lounge's rose petal jam on the scones, and dinner can be Man Wah, on the upper floors, which holds a Michelin star for its Cantonese cooking. The Chinnery began as a private gentlemen's club and is hung with George Chinnery's paintings of British colonial life, which, when the bar opened, was still going on outside the door.