Apricot Hotel has opened its doors for business amid the heart of Vietnam’s cultural and political capital, paying homage to art created by the nation’s master painters and contemporary up and comers.
Akin to a large-scale gallery, Apricot Hotel showcases more than 600 original artworks, with the lobby, corridors and rooms adorned with an array of original and valuable artworks by the nation’s most popular painters ranging from large masterpieces and sculptures to watercolours and sketches.
“Art is a gateway to the deepest, most profound depths of any culture,” said Steve Tan, the hotel’s general manager. “At the same time we’re providing a stationary experience of accommodation, we’re going to take guests on an incredible journey through the history of Vietnamese art and culture.”
Steeped in French colonial history, the 10-storey Apricot Hotel building has experienced a new lease on life since undergoing a major revamp resulting in a classic meets modern design. It was formerly the Phú Gia Hotel, where the city’s movers and shakers began gathering since the 1920s.
In addition to five categories of rooms and suites aptly named “Sketch”, “Canvas”, “Gallery”, “Masterpiece” and “Studio”, the hotel’s mezzanine “L’Artiste” restaurant boasts an open-style kitchen and menus in the design of an artist’s sketchbook while “A’telier”, located in the hotel lobby, serves a selection of teas from across the globe.
Is food art? The question prompts much debate in culinary circles and beyond. And Apricot Hotel’s new executive chef Hugo Barberis has staked a claim to a response that is direct yet nonchalant: “Why would we call our craft culinary art if the presentation of food nor the philosophy of food were not art forms?”
“Like artists experimenting with their mediums while envisaging a masterpiece, chefs at the helm need to illustrate how flavours, aromas and textures interplay, creating dishes that not only present beautifully, aesthetically, but that also engage all of the senses,” Barberis says.
Barberis likens his culinary style to an artist’s palette; a fusion of French cooking skills and Asian flavours with a surprising Italian twist he first acquired when he lived in Rome for five years as a teenager.
He insists that each dish on Apricot Hotel’s L’Artiste Restaurant menu be prepared as a work of art. He thinks of the menu as a sketchbook featuring the likes of foie gras with pineapple ravioli, Norwegian salmon with orange and star anise butter sauce and his grandmother’s apple tart. He will also play an integral role in opening Apricot’s Palette Restaurant.
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Deal Alert
Opening promotional room rates start from $110++ and A’telier’s Afternoon Tea for Two selection of freshly prepared mini-finger sandwiches, warm scones with clotted cream and preserves, homemade cakes and pastries and tea is priced at $23.90++.