W has come a long way since the 1998 conversion of Manhattan’s old Doral Inn on Lexington Avenue, which first announced the upstart brand to the emerging boutique hotel scene. Launched just a year before the more sober refinement of St Regis, today Ws can be found in some of the world’s most fetching destinations—from the Ricardo Bofill-designed W Barcelona, to W Istanbul at the city’s Akaretler Row.
The opening of W Singapore-Sentosa Cove—the 43rd W in the world, and the seventh in Asia—brings W’s sense of flare and unfettered fun to the Lion City. Singapore’s national flower—the Vanda Miss Joaquim orchid—can be found throughout the hotel and serves as the design anchor point for the guest rooms, while guests will be met on arrival by projections of graphic patterns on a waterfall, as well as grass-shaped lights and a rock garden at the terrace, to reflect Sentosa’s landscape.
The hotel’s signature restaurant, The Kitchen Table, is quite the multi-tasker—wood-fired pizza, sushi, tandoori, Thai, dim sum… it’s all there at the various cooking stations—while Woo Bar’s offerings to go with its cocktail menu include goose foie gras with mustard miso on Katafi pastry.
W’s spa brand Away is there, as are the usual sauna, steam room, and vitality pool with body jets. Each private treatment room is 112 square meters and offer ILA-Spa products or OPI nail products, while the hotel also features a 1,300-square-meter outdoor pool with 24 underwater speakers.
If guests are in need of something extra, W’s Whatever/Whenever personal concierge service will be on hand to ensure that need is met—from daily newspaper delivery to yacht reservations.
21 Ocean Way; 65/6808-7288; starwoodhotels.com.
