From: Rohit Khare (rohit@uci.edu)
Date: Thu Mar 23 2000 - 21:57:02 PST
BLAKES For two years, London
designer Anouska Hempel has been working on
bringing her flagship hotel,
Blakes, to Amsterdam. The project, which
involved redoing a 17th-century
canal house, formerly the offices of a
Catholic charity, has been the talk
of the town. And now that Blakes has
opened, it's still the talk of the
town because there's no other hotel
like it in Amsterdam (and because
Hempel's extravagant ways reportedly
made the project go millions over
budget).
Blakes, like all Hempel's projects,
is a study in extremes, beginning with
the signature black-and-white
decor. There are black-lacquered beams,
black-and-white couches in the
lobby, a staff dressed all in black-even
black baskets on the bicycles in
the front courtyard for guests' use.
The theme is carried out
metaphorically in the 26 rooms, where the decor
swings from spartan to plush,
black-and-white to vividly colored. My
favorite rooms were 22, an elegant
white-and-cream suite, one of only
three rooms with canal views; and
10, which with its bamboo chairs,
oversize Asian wood armoires, and
lush black-and-gold Thai silk drapes and
canopy felt like a silk merchant's
boudoir.
As with all of Hempel's hotels,
drama often takes precedence over
practicality. In the three duplex
suites, 16, 17, and 18, the only mirror
is upstairs, the only phone
downstairs. The staircase itself is narrow,
circular, and lacquered: If the
phone rings while you're brushing your
teeth you can risk your life
getting to it. Lying in bed and looking up at
the blue-and-white Japanese
porcelain pots perched on the ceiling beams, I
also couldn't help but wonder what
would happen if a truck roared by and
gave the building a good shake.
The restaurant, while popular with
locals, also could use some
fine-tuning. The tone is
Asian/European fusion, but some of the dishes
either miss in concept or in
execution. I would never have expected
foie-gras soup with sweet Thai
basil and lime (a curious enough dish
anyway) to look and taste like
puréed pumpkin (the foie gras was
imperceptible) and to be very
spicy. On the other hand, chicken Fabergé,
with lobster, ginger, and
lemongrass sauce, which should have been spicy,
was bland. And the sirloin of beef
with green papaya salad and peppercorn
dip featured the very tender
Japanese Wagyu beef, so only improper cooking
could have made it so tough. But
some dishes were great: piquant soup with
Thai money bags (dumplings),
wok-tossed soft-shell crab, chili-seared
langoustines, and chocolate comma,
a dense chocolate mousse.
The service in the hotel is
inconsistent. Some staff members were
extraordinarily personable and
efficient, others couldn't do simple things
like find a phone number of a
well-known business. Despite the
inconsistencies, I would go back.
(I actually grew to like the
black-and-white style, as
pretentious as it looked at first.) And the
location couldn't be better.
$220-$1,250. Keizersgracht 384; 530-2010; fax
530-2030. Reservations:
800-525-4800.
--Rohit Khare -- UC Irvine -- 4K Associates -- +1-(626) 806-7574 http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rohit -- http://xent.ics.uci.edu/~FoRK
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