Brisbane’s NEXT hotel is putting on the schmick

NEXT Hotel’s 304 rooms are fresh and new and all offer exceptional views.

Finally, a hotel where the technology cuts the right corners – like those frustrating reception queues and trying to work out how to turn down your airconditioning.

The world’s first NEXT Hotel has opened in Brisbane following a multimillion-dollar redevelopment by SilverNeedle Hospitality of the old Chifley at Lennons on Queen Street Mall.

Pitched towards the business traveller, the hotel is a cut above the rest when it comes to seamless, modern technology.

Guests who might be sitting in a business meeting, at a ballet performance or a roulette table a few hundred metres away can use their mobile phone to set the temperature, lighting and entertainment channels in their hotel room.

The trick is NEXT’s new app, which enables some seriously good autonomy during the entire stay, including checking in and out and unlocking the room door, all from your phone. You can order breakfast from your bed or a cocktail from poolside, where you can sit and watch the hustle and bustle of one of Australia’s busiest pedestrian malls

The 304 rooms are fresh and new and all offer exceptional views. The hotel’s prime location also lends itself to a reckless shopping spree – with the city’s first Forever 21 store below and the Myer Centre directly opposite.

Weary travellers who arrive early are treated with a superior level of comfort, with showers, lockers, sleeping pods and a club lounge. About time!

Out of respect for its former incarnation, NEXT has named its new restaurant Lennons Restaurant & Bar.

The food is, clearly, comfort food. But it’s diverse, creative and top quality(especially in preparation for this year’s fussy diplomatic types from the G20 in November). Executive chef Todd Adams’s finest dishes include wagyu bresaola with kipfler potatoes; yellowtail kingfish and smoked Tasmanian salmon with pickled beetroot, plus Moreton Island flathead tails.

The NEXT experience is fashionable and schmick. General manager Russell Durnell – formerly of the Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast – remembers the questions raised by people when he made the move from the high-end Palazzo to the experimental NEXT.

“It’s the future,” is his stock answer. And he is exactly right.

Source: The Financial Review - 7th November 2014