The House Where Art Lives
You can often tell the fortunes of a city by its hotels. From backpacker to plush palaces, the travellers a city attracts, and the hotels they are choosing to stay in, says volumes about where any given city is headed. In the case of Xiamen, home to a luxurious and cutting edge new Le Méridien, things are certainly looking up.
Text by Nick Walton
As the city’s first art hotel, and one of it’s top spots for pampering far from home, the Le Méridien Xiamen crowns a mountain peak overlooking the city, and is close to the downtown shopping districts, the Guluang Island ferry, and the airport. The hotel defines the city’s sleek new persona; Xiamen has long been a gateway into China and is increasingly seeing more business travellers, in addition to its traditional market of wealthy visitors travelling to the region’s stunning coastline and seeking out its unique culinary culture.
Subsequently, the hotel has a little something for every traveller. Achieving a balance between an urban ambience and resort-like settings, it doesn’t feel like a city hotel at all. The road up to the hotel winds through thick vegetation and lush gardens punctuated by bubbling fountains, and the vaulted ceilings of the lobby allows for ample natural light. The entrance is grand, and clearly no expense has been spared to create the ultimate welcome to new visitors.
The Le Méridien’s art hotel credentials are immediately apparent; guests are greeted by a small army of cherry-looking orange men dotted throughout the lobby, each donned with a Chinese silk cap. Art hangs throughout the hotel and has been created or chosen by LM100, a commune of specially selected artists who create complete dynamic artistic personas for Le Méridien hotels.
The sense of escaping the city while still being close to the action extends to the hotel’s spacious guest rooms. There is a range of room configurations to suit all types of traveller, from the Classic Rooms, which boast step out balconies and garden vistas, to Superior and Deluxe Rooms, right up to the Junior, Diplomatic and super-plush Presidential Suites. For the ultimate indulgence, the hotel’s Hill Villa Suites are spread across two floors and include a separate dining room, private patios and the essence of lifestyle luxury.
Colours clash and textures pronounce in guest rooms and in the hotel’s sophisticated executive lounge.
China’s food culture is world famous and dining at the Le Méridien Xiamen is a treat for the senses. Newly appointed and multiple award-winning executive chef Lee Da Gang serves up the finest cuisine, using French technique, local produce and imported meats to create some of the most coveted dishes in town. The Le Méridien Xiamen is home to a range of cutting edge restaurants, including Le Mei, which serves up authentic Cantonese and Chao Zhou dishes. Last Recipe, an international buffet, offers everything from Asian noodles to Middle Eastern cuisine, as well as the innovative new Jean Georges Vongerichten signature breakfasts, which include reinvented breakfast classics and a range of unconventional but delicious juices, such as cherry lemon black pepper; mango chilli lime, and raspberry clove. Finally Latitude 24 is home to elegant high teas, innovative cocktails and supreme Illy coffee. Guests can even match dishes at any of the restaurants with a selection of stunning wines from the Starwood Wines of the World list, many of which are available by the glass.
“The sense of escaping the city while still being close to the action extends to the hotel’s spacious guest rooms. ”
The hotel has plenty of amenities and activities to keep both business and leisure travellers busy, including a tennis court, a spacious fitness centre, an indoor heated swimming pool and massage hydrotherapy jacuzzi, and the Touch Spa, which offers the perfect pampering antidote to the riggers of travel. There are even nature discovery walks, hikes and cycling tours conducted by hotel staff to showcase the surrounding area’s natural and cultural appeal, including temples, shrines, villages and restaurants.
If you are in Xiamen to work, the Le Méridien still has you covered, with the city’s most comprehensive meeting facilities. From weddings to award ceremonies, seminars for 700 or round table discussions for only 20, the Le Méridien has 10 meeting rooms and over 2,000 square metres of space, all of which is wired up with the latest in audio visual technology. The Grand Ballroom has the highest ceiling in the city and can easily accommodate 500 guests while many meeting rooms benefit from natural lighting. The hotel’s resort-like grounds also cater to a wide range of outdoor events, which can capitalize on the stunning views from the mountain’s summit location.
Le Méridien Xiamen
7 Guanjun Rd,
Nanshan, Xiamen, China;
Tel: +86 592 770 9999
www.starwoodhotels.com
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