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Dazzling dining views at Harbour Bar and Kitchen, Park Hyatt Sydney, Australia
Harbour Bar and Kitchen Restaurant at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Sydney, Australia, gives you dazzling, iconic waterfront views, perfect for sunset dining. Watch a sky change colour against magical architecture of the Sydney Opera House, as city night lights switch on and dusk falls. Park Hyatt's Harbour Bar and Kitchen is the perfect Sydney setting to enjoy fine food.
Located directly across from the Sydney Opera House, under Sydney's Harbour Bridge in the Rocks, Park Hyatt's Harbour Kitchen & Bar is open for lunch or dinner. Serving tantalizing, internationally-inspired, Australian cuisine from a wood-fired oven, rotisserie and char grill.
Perfectly positioned where boardwalk meets ocean, this is your opportunity to soak in a beautiful atmosphere while enjoying preliminary cocktails at the bar. People-watching here is fascinating; romantic strollers pass by, business walkers-and-talkers relax, tourists marvel at such amazing views along the boardwalk - why not arrive early and enjoy a walk yourself?
In the bar you can enjoy a martini, cocktail or boutique beer in classic elegance - a chic interior by creative designer, Tony Chi. Floor-to-ceiling windows showing off a most iconic Sydney view creates a light and airy ambience, complemented with jazz on Friday and Saturday nights.
Moving into the restaurant area of Harbour Bar and Kitchen doesn't mean you forgo the harbour view and Opera House. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows blissfully continue into the eatery! All the worries of the world fade away as you succumb to a luxurious first class dining service. Your friendly wait-staff lay napkins upon laps, as you choose from an exquisite seasonal menu.
The tantalizing dishes have been carefully engineered by Executive Chef, Andrew Mckee, hailing from Park Hyatt Asia fame. I recommend an entrée of summer pork terrine - as much for the artistic colour and presentation, as for the exquisite taste. Mains offered are such delicious dishes as wood-roasted barramundi, Tasmanian wilderness beef short rib, or Byron Bay Kurobuta pork. While seated at your water-facing table, glance behind to watch the Chef and his kitchen staff prepare their amazing cuisine in the open-plan kitchen. Or glance ahead to gaze at water sparkling views - what a choice!
The sommelier is at hand to recommend complementing wine from an extensive walk-in cellar of imported and local wines. Offering expertise from his French homeland, the sommelier's wealth of knowledge is astounding. The Pastry Chef, Fabien Berteau, has designed a fine dessert selection for your heavenly pleasure. I tried the Black Forest dessert consisting of 70% Valrhona organic chocolate topped with kirsch flavoured cream - yes, this incredible dessert comes thoroughly recommended by me.
Don't miss the present weekday lunch offer. Including main meal, glass of wine, dining service of luxury and divine views, plus valet parking - for $AU39.
Harbour Bar and Kitchen, Park Hyatt Sydney, is the perfect Sydney dining experience, a special dining encounter you won't want others to know about. But now you do. Enjoy...
Q1 Spa in Surfers Paradise, on Australia's famed Gold Coast boasts the indigenous inspired Mali Mapi mud treatment and exfoliation. Which, if I didn't know better, was the real meaning of the word "dreamtime..."
On a rainy summer's day I found myself aimlessly wandering Surfers Paradise's urban jungle - through busy streets chock of fast paced business suits, designer shoppers and daytime neon lights. My destination: the Q1 building. Aka: ‘The Tallest Building in the Southern Hemisphere' as any local will proudly recite, following with it would have been ‘the world,' but Dubai trumped that idea.' In fact Q1 is the 25th tallest building in the world, higher than the NYC Chrysler, and I am impressed it would be compared to the Burj Khalifa, having before stared up at the colossal tower, wondering if Jack threw his magic beans into the foundation cement - it's that high!
So to get my bearings, I glanced up. Glistening through rainclouds was a bright white spire piercing the heavens above a skyline of scrapers. It was a magnificent sight and I scanned my eyes to the building attached. 322.5m is noticeably not as high as the Burj Khalifa of 828m. Perhaps no vertigo feeling will hit you on sight, but you will definitely feel a sense of international glamour. To be precise, I was entering an award-winning Spa.
Pettina, the manager, warmly greeted me and directed the way to an exclusive change room, complete with private shower and WC. With robe and slippers provided for the day, I was escorted to a soothing Jacuzzi for bubble soaking before my treatment began. The warm temperature and back-massaging jets immediately lifted any stress. Time vanished, I was escorted to a treatment room where massage therapist Fi introduced herself and described what the Mali Mapi experience was all about.
Fi tells me a female pharmacist, having studied native Australian flaura and fauna befriended a female indigenous elder and together they established the brand Li' Tya. Meaning ‘of the earth' Li'Tya's signature mud treatments, exfoliating salt scrubs and Australian native bush essential oils have been inspired by and created in harmony with traditional aboriginal cleansing rituals. Together they have presented this to the world, and Q1 proudly represent the products in all spa treatments.
Fi holds out a palette of purifying body mud and lemon myrtle desert salt samples, detailing the benefits of each, and I get to make my selection. Every treatment at Q1 Spa begins with a smoke ritual, where burning leaves give off an aroma of whatever you select. There is no foul burning smell, more an incensing aroma enveloping and immediately creating a calming bush-like atmosphere.
My feet are cleansed in warm, scented water. Heated oil is expertly massaged into my ligaments. I chose the detoxifying salt, which is hydro active and rubbed into my skin to rid dead cells, working on balance and purification. I have the option of a hand or foot massage, and I choose hands. The mud is painted onto my body and I am cocooned in a thermal cloth, while my pores absorb nutrients. The mud is deeply cleansing, and grounds my toxic system. While a regenerating Australian native peach hair mask is massaged into my scalp, my mind too easily picks up on calming music where I recognized faint kookaburras laughing. A female indigenous accent is mixed to modern soothing instrumental sounds on the soundtrack. Breathing in gum scented air, and am transported to the muddy banks of a lost lagoon where life stands still for a moment. I am purified, cozy and feel completely free from the world outside. I also can't help imagining life on earth 40,000 years ago, and the indigenous cleansing rituals before an important night. Next up is Vichy shower time, where water drops emulating rainwater is set to 38 degrees temp, and washes away the mud. 60 minutes have passed too quickly. I am robed, and led upstairs to the Relaxation room with detox tea and quiet time.
I float out of my ‘dreamtime' into the real world... Concrete streets again, damn - take me back to Q1 Spa please!
Located in Marina Mirage on Australia's famed Gold Coast, the world's first luxe designer hotel from fashion label Versace is the five-star award winning Palazzo Versace Hotel. Entering the hotel foyer, weekend high-tea diners are seated under giant chandeliers, sipping tea from signature Versace print teacups. This is indeed a fancy affair..
Glancing around the hotel it is impossible not to recognize Versace's signature design everywhere, right down to the smallest of details. Some people call this trademark décor over the top or tacky, some call it sublime high fashion. Either way, the fine decor unmistakably a Versace hotel and I feel at the height of fashion simply standing in the foyer.
Surrounded by a renaissance splendour of Italian classical design and architecture, the avant guarde hotel prides itself on extravagance and over-the-top attention to detail. Marble floors have been imported from Benedictine monks in Italy, all china and cutlery imported from Europe for example a chandelier from Milan's state library hangs over the very opulent foyer. The hotel also boasts the second largest pebble mosaic in the world, which definitely makes for an impressive driveway.
Guests can expect rooms to be adorned with Donatella Versace's signature furniture and accessories. Fashion photographs decorating the walls are a who's-who of the fashion world. And as for the bathroom, treats are first class including complementary cosmetics and perfumes, slippers and then for sleeping there's a pillow menu for guests to choose from. How luxurious!
Around the outdoor lagoon pool, a ‘water salon' has been created where custom made Versace cabanas and daybeds are adorned with Versace cushions and guests can relax and sip French champagne in the privacy of their own cabana.
With a luxurious spa, mouthwatering restaurant and a white sandy beach imported from nearby Surfers Paradise, a stay at the Versace Palazzo is as good as it gets in luxury on Australia's Gold Coast.
The Palazzo Versace is a truly sumptuous, luxury olde worlde hotel located on the Southport Spit, at Main Beach on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Situated next to a high end shopping area with cosy little restaurants overlooking the waters of Southport.
Concierges will greet you as you enter the main reception area with a huge crystal chandelier overhead in the domed ceiling... glance around at bold ornate italianate styling, listen to a smart young pianist serendading romantic classics on the grand piano, and be at the service of friendly international staff in starched uniforms flitting about looking highly professional. The large circular stone entrance has a grand feel of pomp and circumstance as you are greeted by valet parking and that certain quiet prestige. A wonderful mix of well-heeled, cultured people from all over the world will be lounging around looking dressed for success, with apparently the occasional celebrity thrown in. Stand amist a statement of opulence and look out to a large artificial beach backdrop through floor to ceiling glass walls as your view.
Just saying you are staying at the Versace hotel gives a bit of klout, the hotel has such history and is symbolic of old wealth and decadence to many. Although much of the furniture and fittings are perhaps "over the top" to some, and reek of an age when wealthy people flaunted their wealth, the Palazzo Versace is unashamedly celebrating class and the finer things in life - so why not just go with it!