QT Melbourne

The lifts at QT Melbourne talk, each in its own voice, and one of them coos at its passengers in French, which is fair enough this near the stretch of Collins Street that Melbourne calls the Paris End. The hotel stands on Russell Street where the Greater Union cinema used to be, and it still puts on a show: neon, video screens of shifting abstract shapes, and a wall of 6,000 books for anyone who would rather read. The 188 rooms are concrete and slate, timber and leather. Book a Corner Room, where the bath is set up against the window and turns out to be the best seat in the house; the Lofts have the height, and the skyline with it.

Recommended for a city weekend on foot, by anyone who would rather have a rooftop bar than a pool, because here there is no choice: no pool, and no spa either. Families can make it work, with interconnecting rooms, an extra bed in the Executive King and babysitting on two days' notice. Breakfast at Pascale, the first-floor bar and grill, comes off a wood fire, from a full English with bratwurst and chorizo to Levantine shakshuka. Queen Victoria Market and the National Gallery of Victoria are both a walk away, with trams from Melbourne Central for anything further, and guests praise the location for exactly that. Hot Sauce, a Japanese-Korean bar, has the laneway on the ground floor; the roof has a green-tiled bar pouring gin and tonics, and illuminated tables on the deck facing the skyline. The lift back down will have a line ready.