Upper House Hong Kong

The way into Upper House is through a stone portal and a glass-walled lobby, then up an escalator lit red after the torii, the gate that leads from the everyday world into a Shinto shrine. The everyday world, in this case, is the Pacific Place mall. André Fu kept the hotel above it to limestone and warm timber, and the rooms begin on the 38th floor, glass from floor to ceiling, over Victoria Harbour or the hills behind the island. The smallest category is called Studio 70 and measures 68 square metres, a rounding nobody is likely to hold against it: there is a separate dressing room, a free-standing bath clad in limestone with the view in front of it, and a minibar included in the rate.

Recommended for anyone who wants Hong Kong at the foot of the escalator and quiet at the top of it, and for parents of under-twelves, who are better provided for than the minimalism lets on: every room takes a child, and the Children's Residency, a playroom for six months to twelve years, is free to book. There is no pool and no spa; treatments come to the room, and the free weekend yoga is on the Lawn, a garden six floors up in a district not given to grass. Admiralty station is directly underneath, one stop from Central, and Hong Kong Park a few minutes' walk. The best tables are at the top, on Level 49: Salisterra, for the Mediterranean menu Ricardo Chaneton has refreshed, and Green Room, for the sun going down over the harbour. Green Room opens at half past six in the morning and closes at one, which leaves the harbour five and a half hours a day without an audience.