New Hotel

How’s that for a hotel that gets right to the point? As of 2011 the New Hotel is literally new, but something tells us it’ll still be looking fresh even after the name has abandoned its literal meaning for a more figurative one. And the key, we suspect, is that it’s a hotel with an aesthetic point of view — rather than the off-the-shelf minimalism that recently dominated the boutique hotel world, owner Dakis Jouannou went for something a little bit bolder.

Before it was the New Hotel, you see, it was the Olympic Palace, a fairly representative bit of vaguely utopian mid-20th-century modernism. As it was showing its age, Jouannou elected to gut it — but rather than send its contents to the junkyard, he hired a pair of genius Brazilian interior architects, Fernando and Humberto Campana, to make a new hotel from the pieces of the old. Everything went back in; every door, every beam, every piece of stone, and the result is salvage like you’ve never seen it before.

At bottom, however, it’s the traditional virtues of hospitality that make the New Hotel something more than just an art installation. These rooms have substance to go along with their style, never sacrificing comfort for impact. An inventive modern Mediterranean restaurant keeps guests fed, a gym and wellness center are soon to open, and the location, near Syntagma Square, is absolutely central, offering easy access to the best of Athens, old and new.