This hotel exists in an alternative universe – it’s a hoot

The hotel

Capella Hanoi, Vietnam

The Capella Hanoi ... fabulously ornate.

Check-in

The world’s finest hotels are ultimately as much about high theatre as they are about heights of luxury. In the case of the uncompromisingly indulgent Capella Hanoi, it’s more specifically much ado about opera, with a dash of Roaring ’20s jazz on the side. This 47-room, eclectically decorated establishment has gained inspiration from its own local aria in the form of the Vietnamese capital’s early 20th-century, French-colonial Opera House. It’s a mere diva’s bouquet toss around the corner from the hotel, which is slap bang in Hanoi’s atmospheric Old Quarter.

The look

Statues in the lift vestibule.

Ho chic Minh. On entering the art nouveau meets art deco Capella Hanoi – a branch of what’s now one of the world’s most lauded luxury hotel brands – it can feel like you’ve strayed into the props and set department of that aforementioned grand opry. As it turns out, the hotel’s flamboyantly visionary architect and designer, Bangkok-based Bill Bensley, reputedly maintains several warehouses in which he stores memorabilia he has collected from around the world, with each piece ready to be unleashed in his next distinctive hotel or resort project. A good deal of it seems to be extravagantly on show here, right down to the pair of white Grecian-style statues with modesty loincloths, which dominate the black and gold elevator vestibule.

The room

A premier suite guestroom.

All of the hotel’s individually decorated guest rooms and suites are named in honour of celebrated actors, artists and musicians and styled with operatic memorabilia totalling 1000 pieces overall. My 67-square-metre, lavishly proportioned and appointed suite pays tribute to Pablo Picasso. As befitting the boho locale, there’s an appropriate wrought-iron, street foliage-fronted French balcony and the room is festooned with all manner of collectables, right down to a cleverly modified black bakelite bedside telephone.

Food + drink

Capella Hanoi goes head-to-head nowadays with the venerable, 123-year-old, 364-room Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel. But what Capella Hanoi lacks in quantity of rooms compared to its competitor it compensates for in generous food and beverage offerings. These include the outstanding Michelin-rated Japanese restaurant Koki, with its more sober (soba?) Bensley-free design ethos and the spectacularly adorned breakfast, lunch and dinner, in the Bill Bensley-conceived signature venue Backstage. It’s entered through its own whimsical “paparazzi corridor”, complete with flashing camera bulbs.

Out + about

The Michelin-rated Japanese restaurant Koki.

Many of Hanoi’s most popular attractions, including the ornamental Hoan Kiem Lake and the classic water puppets theatre, are within an easy stroll of this well-located hotel. One of the most rewarding things to do in this part of Hanoi is to rise at dawn and wander the surrounding streets and parks where you’ll witness the locals engaging, en masse, in badminton games and callisthenics, invariably accompanied by raucously amplified pop music.

The verdict

The spa – not to be missed.

Capella Hanoi’s alternate universe can be a bit much, and, splurge-worthy as it is, it may prove a bit too much on the hip-pocket for some. But it’s also a feverishly imaginative hoot, something unexpected in a country with a history sadly more identified by the theatre of war than the theatre of opera.

Essentials

Rooms from $720 a night. 11 Le Phung Hieu, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi, Vietnam. Ph: [phone]. See capellahotels.com; singaporeair.com

Our rating out of five

★★★★½

Highlight

Treat yourself to one of the special treatments at the sumptuously decorated spa and dip in the basement swimming pool replete with chandeliers and mirrored walls and ceilings.

Lowlight

There’s truly so much going on here to keep you captive of the hotel that it can be easy to forget to go outside to savour Hanoi itself.

The writer stayed as a guest of Capella Hanoi and travelled to Vietnam courtesy of Singapore Airlines.