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This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to Hong Kong
With some 2,000 rooms across four locations in Hong Kong, it might feel as though you’d struggle not to stay in a Shangri-La hotel when visiting the city. The brand’s ventures here accommodate 23 bars and restaurants — with a total of three Michelin stars and a bakery among their number — as well as dozens of event spaces, four fitness centres, two hair salons and even a florist.
The hotel group is continuing to tinker with the formula, however — not least at Island Shangri-La, nestled among the towers of Hong Kong Island, with the addition of an “urban oasis” spa and a floor of ostentatiously themed family rooms and suites. With the 12 per cent increase in tourists that Hong Kong saw last year, the property is very much riding the wave of visitors that are heading to Victoria Harbour.
Yun is the group’s wellness concept, launched at Island Shangri-La in late 2024 and set to be rolled out across more locations in the coming years. More than a concept, though, it is a very real and very peaceful eighth-floor space created by Spanish interior designer Lázaro Rosa-Violán, encompassing a spa, swimming pool, gym and treatment rooms. The 90-minute Dr Burgener Lifting and Firming Collagen Facial I received was as blissful an antidote to the effects of London’s hard water as I will probably ever find.
The 2,300 sq ft gym, meanwhile, offers group classes ranging from HIIT to pilates and sound therapy via singing bowls, as well as individual services such as physiotherapy and consultations with a nutritionist. Surrounded by skyscrapers, the pool on the terrace is quiet in the morning, save for the serenades of sparrows — apt for a space that aims to infuse its various therapies in nature.
A thoughtful elegance is apparent throughout the hotel’s Tristan Auer-designed accommodations too: white, gold and sage greens lead a restrained colour palette; toiletries come in unobjectionable scents of orange and citrus courtesy of John Masters Organics; the dainty pâtisserie that appears without fanfare surprises and delights. Every sort of convenience — wireless charging, day beds, umbrellas — is tactfully hidden away in a drawer or cupboard.
It’s all a far cry from the rather bombastic first impressions the hotel extends: the strongly perfumed lobby has a Viennese-café-meets-opulent-wedding-venue coming together of bright marble, dark woods, coruscating carpets and floral displays. A towering indoor silk mural — the largest of its kind in the world, having taken 40 artists six months to complete — climbs 15 floors from a rock garden up to the galleries of rooms and suites. This is, in short, a hotel seeking to bowl you over before letting you recuperate in its immense comfort.
It will also distract you from the countless eateries outside its doors with its own nine bars and restaurants. Head up in the lifts and you’ll arrive at Petrus, the hotel’s Michelin-starred French fine-dining restaurant. Head down and you’ll find Ming Pavilion, where chef Lam Yeung’s Hokkien menu shows off the best of China’s coastal Fujian province; further below are Japanese-inspired Nadaman or, if a cloud-light banoffee pie is the only thing that will hit the spot, the more western-oriented Lobster Bar and Grill.
If you happen to be in one of the lifts at midnight, you may notice one of the hotel’s night owls changing the carpets: like an underfloor calendar, they each bear the name of the current day of the week. So if Island Shangri-La’s commitment to choice doesn’t persuade you, 34 years after it first opened its doors, perhaps its sheer attention to detail will.
At a glance: Island Shangri-La
Good for: Elegant yet all-encompassing luxury
Not so good for: Exploring on foot from the hotel can prove a bit of a maze of walkways and underpasses — take a taxi or a tram
FYI: Pacific Place — a gleaming, four-storey shopping mall — sprawls in the complex below the hotel
Gym: A 2,300 sq ft, Technogym-equipped, 24-hour facility on the eighth floor
Rooms: 544 rooms and suites
Rates: From HK$2,588 ($330/£240)
Address: Pacific Place, Supreme Court Road, Central
Chris Allnutt stayed as a guest of Island Shangri-La
Where do you like to stay in Hong Kong? Tell us in the comments below. And follow us on Instagram at @ftglobetrotter
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