east Hotel & Restaurant

We’ll try to resist linking it to some sweeping generalization about the practical and sensible nature of some imagined German national character, and simply say: we wholeheartedly endorse the trend of listing room descriptions like t-shirt sizes, on a spectrum from Small through X-Large and beyond, eliminating the sort of category creep that results in a whole hotel full of Deluxe or Superior rooms, with nary a Standard or Inferior to be found. East Hotel & Restaurant, in Hamburg, carries a deep streak of exactly that sort of practicality.

There we go again. To be fair, the first thing one notices isn’t how sensibly organized the place is, but how stylishly designed it is. The Chicago-based architect Jordan Mozer seems to have taken the hotel’s name to heart in a somewhat literal manner, weaving Asian accents like silk curtains and soft-edged organic forms throughout the interiors. Accommodations range from the quite comfortable Small rooms to the two-bedroom XX-Large suites, all fashionably modern in style but never cold, perhaps more Bangkok boudoir than Malmö museum.

All this Far East imagery is more than chance, of course. East is as highly regarded for its pan-Asian restaurant as for its hotel rooms, and the scene that centers around Yakshi’s cocktail bar is as lively as any in town. The hotel’s location affords access to both the Reeperbahn (still as vile or as wondrous as ever, depending on your tastes) and the recently seedy but rapidly gentrifying St. Pauli district, with all the nightlife and shopping possibilities that entails. In the morning, when it’s all over, marshal your strength for a trip upstairs to the rooftop spa and sauna, and get ready to do it all again.