Totem Madrid review: Luxury and comfort in Madrid’s trendy Chamberi District
A comfortable room, exceptional and empathetic service and excellent location makes this new Spanish property a must-visit.
Travellers to Europe during high season are accustomed to flight delays and disrupted travel plans. Last northern summer may have found you dozing on a hard airport seat and checking the board every three minutes, hoping your plane had actually arrived. Or praying for time to collapse, so you could quantum leap to a parallel reality of feather pillows and hot showers.
Arriving late at night into Madrid following a long flight delay, I am seated with other zombie travellers beside a sluggish baggage carousel. Ten minutes becomes 20, becomes 60, becomes 90 before suitcases drop from the belt, looking as battered and exhausted as their owners. It’s 3am and all I want is my own bed or a hotel that feels like home.
Enter Totem Madrid. All seems in darkness, the popular bar empty, but reception is on point and incredibly cheery given the hour. Out pops a kindly gent to collect my bag and at check-in there are empathetic murmurs from the young team regarding the suitcase situation at the airport. Room 308 is the perfect balm, that parallel reality I had been dreaming of, with a piping hot shower, fluffy towels, and incredibly comfy bed dressed in crisp Egyptian cotton. The generous minibar is stocked with luxury chocolates and – joy of joy – a kettle, not always a given in Europe, where tea drinkers are often expected to make a brew using a coffee pod machine (insert incredulous emoji).
From the wee hours onwards, the 64-room Totem Madrid proves the perfect home away from home, rather like a private club. There’s that kettle, a blissful quiet courtesy of excellent soundproofing, and proper low-fi analog switches, each corresponding precisely with the correct light. Having wasted hours in hotel rooms attempting to extinguish that last remaining elusive light, this is a particular relief.
Tucked away on a quiet street in swanky Salamanca, the hotel puts me within easy striking distance of upscale boutiques, restaurants and the city’s leading art museums, including the Prado. The lovely 120ha Retiro Park is a relaxed 10-minute stroll. This part of Madrid is effortlessly chic and so is Totem, housed in an elegant 19th-century building stylishly transformed, with an impressive timber staircase winding up through the heart of the hotel.
In the morning, the dimensions of my sunlit corner room are more apparent, with no less than three sets of floor-to-ceiling windows and a small balcony offering romantic street views in this heart of the ‘‘Golden Mile’’. A separate living area with stylish sofa allows space for another bed if required and dogs are welcome. This junior suite has a comfy residential feel with timber floors, a soothing pale colour scheme contrasted against a black marble bathroom and some diverting contemporary art.
Downstairs, a rich colour palette and luxury detailing creates welcoming spaces. Opening off the small reception area, and separated by voluminous velvet curtains, the bar is jazz age-dapper with cool green velvet banquettes, marble floor and potted olive trees set beneath a glass ceiling that provides a lovely, dappled light in the afternoon. With a bank of windows looking on to the street, hotel restaurant El Pimiento Verde serves good coffee and a la carte breakfasts (Mexican ranch-style eggs are the go) morphing into a cool dining venue later in the day.
I have only one day in Madrid and the team at the front desk are brilliant in helping me to plan an itinerary. Maps are marked, taxis whistled up and 10 minutes later I’m in the heart of the El Rastro flea market (open every Sunday). This district is also home to many vintage and antique shops; don’t miss Galerias Piquer, a charming courtyard of super-smart dealers. Then on to the Prado, to see the recently restored Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath.
Back at the hotel I skip the small gym (fitness circuits around Retiro Park with a personal trainer are an option) and head straight to dinner in El Pimiento Verde. Basque dishes are a speciality and the menu features plenty of seafood; I love the cod, garlic sprout and porcini omelette. Be advised, serves are enormous. My grilled Basque sausage entree could feed a family. It’s delicious comfort food in a hotel that feels like home.
In the know
Totem Madrid, a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, is at 23 Calle de Hermosilla, Salamanca, Madrid. Rooms from €323 ($534).
Christine McCabe was a guest of Totem Madrid.
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