The verdict on Hilton’s first property in Tasmania

The hotel

DoubleTree by Hilton Hobart

DoubleTree by Hilton, on Hobart’s Macquarie Street.

Check-in

Hilton’s first hotel in Tasmania opened on the edge of Hobart’s city centre in October with 206 rooms, including 80 deluxe rooms. In a city where real estate is judged by its mountain or water views, the new-build hotel, on the site of a former homewares store, promises one or the other in most rooms. It features a guest-only 15-metre lap pool and wood-lined sauna and gym, accessed by a dedicated lift between guest-room floor and the first-level facilities.

The guest-only pool.

The look

The DoubleTree rises above busy Macquarie Street, but this being Hobart, it’s still a mere nine storeys high. On one side it brushes shoulders with a typical piece of Hobart colonial architecture – the soft sandstone facade of the original campus for local private school Hutchins, designed in 1846 by one of Tasmania’s most prominent early settlers, William Archer. Taking that sandstone finish as its own cue, the DoubleTree’s lowest four levels are tiled in sandstone, before topping out in five floors of view-capturing glass.

The room

A king deluxe room and its views.

My 33-square-metre, seventh-floor deluxe room is most notable for its floor-to-ceiling windows, angled in such a way that the room and the bed, placed enchantingly close to the window, feel almost cantilevered over Macquarie Street. The spacious bathroom features a rain shower and Crabtree and Evelyn toiletries, and panoramic photos of local scenes run like banners above the bed heads – in my room, a shot of Sydney Hobart yachts crossing the finish line. My room is water-view, looking out over historic Battery Point with glimpses of the cruise port and the Antarctic icebreaker ship RSV Nuyina – it’s Hobart’s maritime existence in a glance.

Food + drink

Chef Nathan Chilcott, formerly of Hobart’s Mures.

Under the watch of Nathan Chilcott, former executive chef at Hobart’s waterfront Mures, the light-filled Leatherwood is the hotel’s most attractive space. The menu is staunchly Tasmanian, from local abalone and scallops to Clover lamb and Cape Grim beef. It’s worth pulling up a stool at the attached bar, with its wide selection of local beer and wines, to watch city life roll past through the slit windows.

Out + about

It’s a distinctive feature of Hobart and the DoubleTree’s location that you can be on the fringe of the city and yet still at its heart. My room stares down into St David’s Park, the green gateway into Salamanca’s restaurants, bars and market, with the boat-filled waterfront just beyond. A trio of Hobart’s finest restaurants – Fico, Dier Makr, Pitzi – are within a two-block radius of the hotel.

The verdict

While adding nothing distinctly unique to Hobart’s hotel scene, the DoubleTree is well positioned and strong on the city’s star quality: views.

Essentials

Rooms from $205 a night. Ten accessible rooms, including five connected to an adjacent room for guests travelling with a support person. 179 Macquarie Street, Hobart. See hilton.com/en/hotels/hbamadi-doubletree-hobart.

Our rating out of five

★★★½

Highlight

The angled room window that seems almost to draw the outside in. Keep the curtains open and the sense of sleeping within the view is palpable.

Lowlight

Room and corridor carpets already feel faded and old, while preventing shower water from spilling out into the wider bathroom is mission impossible.

The writer was a guest of DoubleTree by Hilton Hobart.