Niccolo Chongqing

Chongqing IFS, the towers and mall that Wharf developed with China Overseas Land in the new business district of Jiangbeizui, on the north bank of the Jialing, opened in September 2017, and its hotel came first, on the 8th. Niccolo Chongqing fills floors 52 to 62 of Tower 1, about 300 metres high, and was billed at its opening as the tallest hotel in the city. Its 252 rooms fill the floors in between; check-in is in a sky lobby on the 62nd, with the restaurants and the bar, and the pool and spa are on the 52nd. The brand takes its name from Niccolò Polo, the father of Marco. OKYTO's Regent Chongqing is the other way to stay on the water here.

Photo: 虹色分子 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0

The interiors are by Hirsch Bedner Associates, whose design director Darrell Long kept the tones broad and muted with small, balanced explosions of colour, and used form, he said, to take the materials from a whisper to a scream: dark polished stone and heavily veined marble in the lobbies, a Tea Lounge in blue with a fireplace, white subway tile and an onyx slab in Niccolo Kitchen, and a Bar 62 modelled on the smoky jazz clubs of the past.

The Sky Suite is the only room on two levels, with windows seven metres high. Most rooms face the rivers, and the river rooms frame the meeting of the Jialing and the Yangtze, with Chaotianmen, its wharf and bridge, and Hongya Cave on the Yuzhong peninsula opposite.

Sources: Hospitality Net; Hospitality Design; Sleeper; Winshang; China Daily; Niccolo Chongqing; Niccolo Chongqing