The Landmark Mandarin Oriental

The original Mandarin Oriental on Hong Kong island just about cornered the market on over-the-top classic luxury. No surprise, then, that the Landmark, over in Central, is a little bit different. It’s a contemporary masterpiece in a town where tastes run conservative — the interiors by Adam Tihany and Peter Remedios are very near the cutting edge of modern luxury.

Floors in black wood are probably the most immediately striking feature in the guest rooms, but hardly the only notable one — on average, these are purported to be the largest hotel rooms in Hong Kong, and while we don’t have the statistical knowledge to assess that claim, we can say that at 450 square feet, even the smallest rooms at the Landmark are more than spacious enough. The clean lines and muted colors seem to further enlarge the space, and there’s plenty of room for every technological diversion you can imagine, including (finally!) iPod connections for the sound system.

A hundred-odd rooms is smallish for a Mandarin, and necessitates just one restaurant and one bar, the baroque European-inflected Amber and the wildly popular MO Bar — both patronized heavily by Hong Kong locals as well as hotel guests. The spa, by contrast, seems nearly excessive, spanning two floors and offering a byzantine array of treatments. The Central location is right in the thick of it all — think Wall Street and Midtown rolled into one. Shoppers, particularly, have cause to rejoice: guests at the Hyde Park Mandarin in London have to walk all the way across the road to get to Harvey Nichols, while here at the Landmark it’s right next door.