The Peninsula Hong Kong: heritage minus the hush

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to Hong Kong

At some point it became customary to refer to The Peninsula as the grande dame of Hong Kong hotels. To the extent that grande damerie is a matter of longevity, this is fair enough. It’s no secret that it is pushing 100 — it will celebrate its 98th birthday at the end of this year. Which is getting on a bit by hotel standards anywhere, and positively ancient by the standards of Hong Kong.

But in other respects the grande dame label doesn’t seem entirely right. There’s nothing fusty, faded or flagging about The Peninsula, and barely a trace of hauteur, let alone outright snootiness. The original, discreetly Italianate, six-storey, H-shaped main building (complete with box-hedged piazza and splashing fountain in front) these days supports a frankly unsentimental 30-storey steel-and-glass tower. Yes, you can still get chauffeured around town in one of the hotel’s fleet of vintage Rolls-Royces if that’s what you fancy — just don’t forget there’s a helipad on the roof as well. Two of them, actually.

Even the Peninsula’s most obviously nostalgic feature, the lobby — one of the great lobbies of the world, vast and gilded, swarming with white-gloved, pill-box-hatted pages — seems as crisp as new banknotes. Like the rest of the hotel, it honours the past while welcoming the present. It’s abuzz with all the energy and all the languages of a great entrepôt — just as it was when it opened almost a century ago. The Peninsula Hotels group now comprises 12 properties in cities around the world, but the Peninsula Hong Kong remains very much the yardstick by which the rest are to be judged.

Location

The hotel took its name from its position on what was, at the time of its construction, the southernmost point on the Kowloon peninsula, facing Victoria Harbour and, across the water, Hong Kong Island. Land reclamation has reduced the distance from one side of the harbour to the other, and The Peninsula is no longer the hotel closest to the shoreline on the Kowloon side. Nevertheless, its Central-facing views remain magnificent, day or night. Its Kowloon-facing views are impressive, too, especially from the evergreen, effortlessly cool Philippe Starck-designed bar and restaurant, Felix, on the 28th floor. The rickshaws and ox carts that once clogged the streets are gone, but the Star Ferry, the Kowloon-side terminal of which is a short walk from the hotel’s front door, is still going strong and still possessed of a unique Hong Kong charm.

Rooms

The Peninsula Hong Kong got a great many things right at the time of its last major renovation (by the Chicago-based Gettys Group in collaboration with the hotel’s own in-house design team, between 2012 and 2014). Sir Michael Kadoorie — whose family has owned and operated the hotel and the others in the Peninsula portfolio since the get-go — sat down, one on one, with high-rolling regulars and showed them renderings, swatches, pieces of furniture, suites in the making. What did they think? How did they like these leather tabs, inspired by vintage steamer trunks, instead of knobs on the drawers? Was the combination of antique porcelain and contemporary art working? Did the glossy black door frames look right alongside silk curtains and burled mahogany? The result was (and remains) stealth luxe at its best. At first glance, hard-edged, creamy and neutral; on closer inspection, richly, luxuriantly textured, with many delightfully contrasting elements. 

Restaurants 

There are eight restaurants, possibly as many as 12 — it depends whether you count hybrid venues such as the bar and the poolside terrace. If you were to count them and then add in-room dining and The Peninsula-run Star Ferry that serves afternoon tea on the harbour, the total would come to a dozen. 

Gaddi’s has delivered impeccable French classics (foie gras terrine, Anjou pigeon, beef tartare, Brittany blue lobster, mille-feuille) since 1953; it got its first Michelin star in 2020 and its first female chef de cuisine, Anne-Sophie Nicolas, in 2024. It’s said that XO sauce was invented at Spring Moon, The Peninsula’s much-loved Art Deco-styled Cantonese dining room, now also Michelin-starred. And then there’s Chesa, an alarmingly authentic, surreally Swiss fondue joint, where you wouldn’t look out of place if you showed up with an alphorn under one arm and a Saanen goat under the other.

But in my opinion, the hotel’s top table — literally and figuratively — is the one in the cosy little low-ceilinged China Clipper lounge, on the 30th floor, directly beneath the rooftop helipads. Guests who take a trip by chopper can squander the time they’ll have saved by doing so in the lounge before and after their flight. It’s a shrine to the golden age of aviation, full of old propellers and polished steel and rivets and framed photographs of seaplanes touching down in far-flung, palm-fringed lagoons.

Gym, pool and spa

The wellness area is spread over two floors, the seventh and eighth, with knockout harbour views. The gym is fully equipped with all the latest hi-tech gear from Life Fitness; real-life personal trainers are on hand as well, should guests wish to deviate from the digital. The spa has 14 treatment rooms offers an extensive menu of Asian- and European-themed treatments using products by Margy’s Monte Carlo and Voya, and there are men’s and women’s hammam-style steam rooms, saunas and aromatherapy showers, as well as an outdoor sun lounge.

The indoor pool is 18 metres long, heated to between 29C and 30C and opens directly onto an outdoor terrace — an incredible bonus in this space-poor city. But with its friezes and columns, the “Roman ruin” styling of the pool, though executed with admirable gusto, does seem a tad dissonant with the Bank of China and HSBC buildings rather than the Colosseum or Baths of Caracalla visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows. 

Art

The Peninsula Hong Kong introduced its Art in Resonance programme in 2019, commissioning site-specific works to be exhibited in the hotel’s public spaces. Typically, these works will go on to travel to other Peninsula properties as well, creating a rolling inventory of temporary exhibits to complement each hotel’s own permanent collection. The 2026 programme, to be unveiled in in March, will include a transformation of the hotel’s façade by rising local star Angel Hui — an intriguing prospect, since she is known for small-scale works in ink on tissue paper. And, in the lobby, Albert Yonathan Setyawan, a Tokyo-based Indonesian ceramicist, will present a meditation on “ritual, repetition and quiet space”. The ritual and repetition make perfect sense in the lobby setting — not so sure about the quietness of the space, though. 

Steve King was a guest of The Peninsula Hong Kong

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