Inside’s Crown’s new ‘six star’ Sydney hotel
Billing itself as Sydney’s first six-star hotel, the 349-room Crown Sydney is already attracting repeat guests even as the brand new casino palace is still to get the regulatory green light.
Crown will also become the new focus for international luxury goods design houses that are expected to be based at the Barangaroo hotel’s three significant ground-floor retail spaces.
Upmarket restaurateur Sunny Lusted and her husband Ross already report solid business at Woodcut, one of Crown Sydney’s 14 restaurants and bars.
The Lusteds, who previously ran Sydney’s fine-dining The Bridge Room, say business at Woodcut is brisk despite the 350-patron eatery being slapped with a 299-person COVID-driven capacity limit.
With a pressed wood-look ceiling inspired by Northern Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway or, closer to home, the rocks around the Kiama blowhole on the NSW south coast, the contemporary restaurant features dining zones including an American-style sit-up bar, a chef’s table and a private dining room.
“We want people to treat it as a neighbourhood restaurant,” says Sunny Lusted, adding that the restaurant, which has Black Market T-bone 1kg steaks for $180 and delicious 200gm tenderloins for $49 replete with a choice of Paris butter, Bearnaise sauce or mustards, is attracting lots of walk-ins from its harbourside boardwalk — as well as hotel guests.
Nine of the 14 restaurants and bars, including Epicurean, are open, while Nobu at Crown Sydney, a sister restaurant to Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth, is solidly booked until April.
Perhaps it’s the 50 different types of marble or the generous-sized $1800-a-night suites with all mod cons, including Japanese Toto toilets complete with automatic lid opening and closing, that is of appeal to the repeat guests.
Or the lavish chocolate fountain in the hotel’s swish Epicurean restaurant, where wealthy Sydney-based apartment developer Iwan Sunito, who is soon to expand his company Crown Group (no relation to Crown Towers) into Los Angeles, was spotted last Saturday morning.
Priced from $850 a night on weekdays for a lead-in room, Crown Sydney’s only Sydney hotel price competitor is the Park Hyatt.
On Saturday night, Crown Sydney has a lead-in rate of $1199 including breakfast, while Park Hyatt rooms are priced at $1021 a night, including a balcony overlooking Circular Quay as well as breakfast.
Crown Sydney reports that last Friday night it was around 55 % occupied, while in the next few weeks it will open a further 20 private villas and two premium villas replete with personal butlers and separate entrances.
Around the hotel’s packed pool overlooking the harbour, poolside cabanas, which include personal safes, are renting out for $350 for a couple of hours.
Designed by New York City-based firm Meyer Davis, the hotel’s interiors merge Crown’s luxury with Sydney’s coastal landscape.
The writer was a guest of Crown Sydney.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
