Hotel Plaza Grande

The changing of the guard happens on Mondays. At eleven in the morning the presidential guard parades in blue and red beneath the balcony of the Carondelet Palace, and the best seats are the French windows of Hotel Plaza Grande, on the corner of García Moreno and Chile, on the Plaza de la Independencia in the centre of Quito. The square is the old heart of the Spanish colonial capital, with the cathedral, the Archbishop's Palace and the city hall on its other sides, and the hotel is the only one on it.

History

The building went up on the site of houses that had stood on the square since the sixteenth century. In the 1930s it opened as the Hotel Majestic, the first hotel in Quito built to European standards, with a lift and private bathrooms, and for a generation it was where visiting presidents and businessmen stayed in the old town. As the city grew north in the second half of the century the centre lost its hotels and the Majestic closed. The restoration of the historic centre that followed UNESCO's inscription in 1978 brought investment back, and the building reopened in the 2000s as Hotel Plaza Grande, a small luxury house of 15 suites. The facts file gives 1943 as the opening year; the Majestic's opening in the 1930s and the hotel's reopening in the 2000s should both be checked.

Architecture and design

The façade is the early-twentieth-century republican style of the square, stone at the base with tall windows, wrought-iron balconies and a cornice, matching the neighbouring Archbishop's Palace in scale. Inside, the restoration kept the lift cage, the marble staircase and the high ceilings, and furnished the suites in a French manner with silk, gilt mirrors and chandeliers. Every suite has a sitting room, and the corner ones look over the square to the palace and the cathedral towers.

Rooms and suites

There are 15 suites and nothing else. The smallest are the Plaza Suites with views of the square; the Royal Suite on the top floor has a jacuzzi and a terrace. The hotel makes a point of a butler on each floor and of breakfast served in the room when guests ask for it. At 2,850 metres above sea level, the house keeps oxygen available for guests who feel the altitude on the first night.

Dining

The restaurant on the upper floor, with a balcony onto the square, serves French-influenced cooking at dinner and is the formal room. A cafe at street level serves Ecuadorian breakfasts, coffee from the country's own highlands and lunch to guests and passers-by. A wine cellar in the vaults below the building hosts tastings and private dinners. The facts file counts one restaurant; the cafe and cellar should be confirmed.

Weddings and events

The hotel has a conference room and hosts small weddings, receptions and board meetings; with 15 suites the house can be taken over entirely for a wedding party. The wine cellar and the restaurant balcony serve private dinners. The facts file records that the hotel hosts both weddings and meetings and gives no capacities.

Location

The Plaza de la Independencia, also called the Plaza Grande, is the centre of the historic district of Quito, which UNESCO inscribed in 1978 alongside Kraków as the first two World Heritage cities. The church of La Compañía, with its gold-leaf interior, is one block south on García Moreno; the monastery of San Francisco and its square are three blocks west; the Panecillo hill with its winged Virgin rises above the rooftops. Mariscal Sucre International Airport, which opened at Tababela in February 2013, is around 40 kilometres east, an hour by car. For a luxury hotel in Quito the old town has few options, and this is the one on the square.