Even though he was only in Australia for three years as GM of InterContinental Sydney from 2006 to 2009,
Colombian dynamo Alvaro Rey created his usual innovative storm. Apart from anything else, Rey enhanced the products in that hotel’s 11th floor rooftop Club InterContinental so that those revelling in views down to Circular Quay, Sydney Harbour, Sydney Harbour Bridge or the Opera House, could also taste and sip the best Australia has to offer.
InterContinental London Park Lane | London Deluxe Room
Alvaro Rey moved on to London, where he remains GM of one of London’s best-located luxury hotels. Speaking to him, Rey recalls that when he first arrived London hotels simply did not ‘do’ GMs who were not European. Nevertheless, he waded right into the market by inviting ambassadors from around the globe to come to cocktails – or perhaps glasses of juice if more appropriate – to get to know his hotel.
InterContinental London Park Lane, at the junction of Park Lane and Piccadilly at the north-east corner of Hyde Park Corner, is a solid stone structure that blends beautifully with Buckingham Palace, just ten minutes’ walk away. Hyde Park Corner is dominated by Wellington Arch, also known as Constitution Arch, topped by the 1912 life-sized statue of four horses known as the Quadriga (it was sculpted by Decimus Burton). The largest bronze in England, eight people have dined inside the statue, which was a replacement for an earlier 1828 statue of the Duke of Wellington on horseback which had to be moved because of a road-widening scheme. You can look across to the Duke’s home, Apsley House, from the seventh floor Club InterContinental at InterContinental London Park Lane.
InterContinental London Park Lane | Wellington Lounge
Influenced by his maxim, ‘If you do not constantly re-invest you eventually have to spend even more’, Alvaro Rey is constantly tweaking the club. The club already has one of the best breakfast buffets in the business, nestled in a dedicated area. Now, he tells me, he is talking to the hotel’s owners in Qatar about adding a stand-up bar counter, similar to those on some A380s.
InterContinental London Park Lane | Club InterContinental
He is also doing major work to the 447 bedrooms on site. I stayed in suite 106, part of the enormous Capital Suite that he cleverly made out of what had been management offices. Yes, in the Good Old Days, the GM and his disciples would have had, and did have, splendid offices looking straight out at Apsley House, Hyde Park Corner and its Quadriga. Now the team has even more splendid offices that are custom-built in part of the carpark and the hotel has a Capital Suite with two meeting rooms (one for 14 delegates) and up to five bedroom suites. I was in one such suite and I loved it. RPW’s London-based team, comprising Elizabeth Lane, Heather McLellan, Ariane Steinbeck and Jan Wilson have gone for a crisp business look that also appeals to discerning leisure travellers. The carpet, for instance, is best described as a light tortoise ‘shell’ design with off-white dividers, the pale mushroom main colour brilliantly evolves to blue as you walk closer to the bathroom. In that bathroom, unusually a giant free-form bronze sculpture – big but minnow-like compared to the Quadriga – has somehow become intentionally attached to the mirror over the tub.
InterContinental London Park Lane | Theo Randall Chef Table
This is a hotel that has thought of everything. I was right next to the first-floor Technogym, which is 24/7, and the spa (if you want a pool, remember this is England and you may well get wet just going outside). The Spanish Concierge, Oscar Fernandez, will forever be my friend after helping with a frustrating MacBook Air challenge; he then helped someone wanting to know the opening hours of Fortnum&Mason, Harrods and Harvey Nichols, all a few minutes away.
InterContinental London Park Lane | Theo Randall Main Restaurant
There are two restaurants, Theo Randall for innovative modern British-Italian, with cooking classes if you want, and psychedelic-Mexican Ella Canta, overseen by Martha Ortiz from Dulce, in Mexico City. I just missed Robbie Williams by the way – he was booked for a buy-out of Ella Canta to celebrate ten years of Elite Models. Yes, this is a Top People hotel. As I was checking out, a royal family was about to check-in; I never found out which, though I do know there was also a household name sports star in house who called Alvaro Rey on his mobile while I was breakfasting with him at 7.30 a.m. I wanted to ask him personally to make sure that breakfast for one, poached eggs on wholewheat with side of avocado, was delivered to the appropriate room.
InterContinental London Park Lane | Ella Canta
Yes, that is the kind of personal attention that GMs gave in the past and the very best luxury hotel GMs still give today. And at the same time Alvaro Rey must constantly be thinking about how to make his product even better, obviously for the hotel’s customers but also for his team. At the risk of repeating a wish that hotels dressed their front desk women more attractively, I still yearn for the Yves Klein blue jackets when then-Hyatt on Collins opened in Melbourne. At InterContinental London Park Lane what would otherwise be a grey ‘uniform’ comes alive because of chunky necklaces. Little things make a difference.
