Gleneagles Townhouse, Edinburgh
Edinburgh’s ultimate boutique hotel for a cosy city escape
Everyone knows all about the original Gleneagles, in rural Perthshire, which has long been the stuff of legend. Now they opened one hotel in Edinbugrh’s St Adfrew’s Square.
The hotel is housed in a former Bank of Scotland building, reborn as a chic private members’ club and boutique hotel. Its neoclassical façade hints at a storied past, but as soon as I step through those grand doors, it feels as if the space has shed its formal attire, embracing a more playful and inviting atmosphere.
This is ostensibly a members’ club. Yet in most it also functions as a normal hotel. The bedrooms are all soft pastel colours and deep velvet, with classic reproduction furniture, voluptuous curtains, polished wood floors and oriental rugs. Retro wallpapers, Redouté floral prints and Roberts radios are a nod to the past; the pre-mixed cocktails in the lavishly stocked minbars and hair straighteners all about now.
Only members and guests have access to the roof level Lamplighters Bar, far above (literally and metaphorically) the hoi polloi, where you can enjoy city views and sunsets while sampling Robert Louis Stevenson-inspired cocktails and delicious highfalutin’ bar snacks.
Downstairs The Spence restaurant – formerly the banking hall – is busy, charmingly informal. You can settle into a curvaceous banquette at any time of day, for a cocktail from the art deco bar or go straight to the main menu.
