The Reverie Saigon Opens With Italian Design on a Grand Scale

The Reverie Saigon opened officially in September 2015 in District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City, between Nguyen Hue Boulevard and Dong Khoi Street. It occupies the upper and lower floors of Times Square, a 39-storey tower that was seven years in the making, and it has 286 rooms and suites. It set out to be the most extravagant hotel in Vietnam, and by general agreement it succeeded.

The hotel is an exhibition of Italian furniture and craftsmanship. Its owners commissioned the interiors from a group of Italian houses, among them Colombostile, Giorgetti, Visionnaire, Poltrona Frau and Cassina, each of which furnished a set of suites or public rooms in its own manner. The lobby, on the seventh floor, holds a monumental clock in green malachite by the Florentine firm Baldi and a sofa five metres long in purple ostrich leather; mosaics by Sicis cover walls and columns. Nothing is understated.

The rooms range from 43 square metres to a suite of 313 square metres, and look over the Saigon River or the centre of the city from the upper floors of the tower.

There are five places to eat. The Royal Pavilion serves Cantonese food and has nine private dining rooms. R&J is a contemporary Italian restaurant in the basement, Café Cardinal the all-day French restaurant, with an atrium three storeys high, and The Long is a café that runs through the building from one street to the other along a marble counter 48 metres in length. The spa covers 1,200 square metres, and the outdoor pool, 24 metres long, is lined with mosaic. The hotel keeps a fleet of cars that includes Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, and it is a member of The Leading Hotels of the World.

The hotel was developed by a Vietnamese family group and is independently run, which is unusual at this level. It stands a few steps from the Opera House and from the older Park Hyatt Saigon, which offers the opposite style. OKYTO’s pages on The Reverie Saigon and on Ho Chi Minh City have more.