Opening a modern boutique hotel in a fin de siècle building already provides its own challenges, but opening one in four adjoining piles built between 1905 and 1906 must have given even the prolific Althoff Hotels group pause. The result though deserves a round of applause.
With great aplomb, the handsome quartet – originally designed by Albert Klöckner, Robert Wollmann and August Albert – in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel has been stitched into a quietly luxurious 133-room property. The interiors have been unified by Luigi Fragola, the Italian designer laying down Calacatta Oro marble in a herringbone pattern and gently emphasising the buildings’ heritage with graphic monochrome patterns, brass accents and furnishings by Rubelli and Bettenhaus Mühldorfer.
The hotel, though already open, is still very much a work in progress. One room, designed by Danish artist Benedikte Bjerre, is still to open next year, alongside a spa and French bento bar. On the ground floor, Le Petit Royal Frankfurt is conceived by the Berlin-based Grill Royal Group to harness local produce and eggs from the farm of head chef Udo Grigas into French classics such as beef tartare and grilled Chateaubriand – though our attention remains riveted by the idea of a kilogram of roasted Argentinian wild-caught prawns. §