Mandarin Oriental, Barcelona

Passeig de Gràcia 38-40 was a bank. The stone façade with its tall ground-floor windows still looks like one, which is the point: the Mandarin Oriental, Barcelona kept the shell of the mid-century headquarters of the Banco Hispano Americano and gutted the inside, so that a guest walks up a ramp from the city's grandest avenue into a white atrium cut through the full height of the building.

History

The building dates from the 1950s and served as a bank until the 2000s, when the Mandarin Oriental group took it on for its first hotel in Spain. The conversion ran for several years and the hotel opened in November 2009 with 98 rooms. A later extension into the neighbouring building, completed in 2014, raised the count to 120 and added larger suites, including a penthouse with a terrace over the avenue. The bank's vaults became the spa.

Architecture and design

Carlos Ferrater, the Barcelona architect of the city's botanical garden and the Paseo Marítimo at Benidorm, handled the conversion, and Patricia Urquiola, the Spanish designer who works out of Milan, did the interiors. The atrium is the device that organises everything: a tall white void with the rooms' corridors as galleries around it, the lobby bridge spanning it and the Blanc restaurant at the bottom. Urquiola's rooms are pale, with lacquer, natural fabrics and the occasional strong colour, and the public rooms are furnished in her own pieces for Moroso and B&B Italia. The Mimosa garden at the back of the ground floor is a planted terrace that is one of the hotel's best-kept surprises on a street of traffic.

Rooms and suites

The 120 rooms and suites face Passeig de Gràcia, the interior garden or the atrium galleries. The avenue rooms have the Gaudí and Puig i Cadafalch façades of the Manzana de la Discordia across the street. The Penthouse Suite, on the top floor, has its own terrace, and the Barcelona Suite looks down the avenue. Bathrooms throughout are in marble with the deep tubs the brand insists on.

Dining

Moments is the reason the hotel appears on the city's culinary map. Carme Ruscalleda, the Catalan chef whose Sant Pau restaurant held three Michelin stars until it closed in 2018, created it with her son Raül Balam, who runs the kitchen; it holds two Michelin stars and serves a tasting menu of Catalan produce in a room of gold tones. Blanc, in the atrium, is the all-day restaurant and the place for breakfast and a Mediterranean lunch. Banker's Bar, in what was the bank's hall with the safe-deposit boxes still in the wall, is the cocktail bar, with live music on some nights. Terrat, on the roof, serves Peruvian-influenced dishes beside the pool in the warm months.

Wellness

The spa is in the basement where the vaults were, with treatment rooms, a 12-metre indoor pool, a hammam and a fitness room. The rooftop pool at Terrat is a dipping pool rather than a lap pool, with a view of the Sagrada Família on one side and Montjuïc on the other.

Weddings and events

The hotel holds weddings in the Mimosa garden and the function rooms off the ground floor, and uses the Terrat roof for cocktail receptions; a ballroom and a set of meeting rooms take dinners, product launches and board meetings for the firms of the Eixample. Capacities are not given here.

Location

The hotel is in the Eixample on Passeig de Gràcia, with Casa Batlló two doors away and La Pedrera a few minutes' walk up the avenue. Plaça de Catalunya and the start of La Rambla are at the foot of the avenue, and Passeig de Gràcia station, with metro lines and the airport train, is at the door. Barcelona-El Prat Airport is about 25 minutes by car. Among luxury hotels in Barcelona it is the one with the best address and the strongest kitchen.