Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi

The Hotel

The Metropole Hanoi opened on 1 August 1901 as the first colonial-French grand hotel in Indochina, built by French investors André Ducamp and Gustave-Émile Dumoutier in the early-Belle-Époque vocabulary at 15 Ngo Quyen Street, three blocks from the Hoan Kiem Lake and four from the Hanoi Opera House. The building stood as the principal hotel of French Indochina through the colonial period (1901–1954), through the partition years and the Vietnam War (when the Bamboo Bar served the foreign press corps and the Le Beaulieu kitchen continued operating during the bombing campaigns), through the unified-Vietnam reopening years, and through Sofitel's 1991-1992 takeover and comprehensive restoration that reopened the property as Sofitel Metropole. The promotion to Sofitel Legend (Sofitel's heritage-grand-hotel tier) was announced 23 March 2009 — the brand's first Asia-Pacific Sofitel Legend property. The current Opera Wing addition, designed in the colonial-French vernacular by Saigon architect Louis Reynaud, was completed in 1996 and brought the room count to 364.

The 364 rooms divide between the original 1901 Historical Wing (155 rooms in the original colonial building, with restored period parquet, original ceiling fans, and the old-Indochina decorative register) and the 1996 Opera Wing (209 rooms in the contemporary-but-period-vocabulary addition, with marble-floor bathrooms and the upper-storey balconies overlooking the central courtyard). Standard categories begin at 35 square metres in the Historical Wing and at 38 in Opera; the Grand Prestige Suite at 110 square metres in the Historical Wing is the milestone unit, with a private balcony overlooking the central garden. Bathrooms are travertine and brass; bath products are Lanvin, Sofitel's signature.

The dining programme is the heritage layer. Le Beaulieu — the French fine-dining room opened in 1901 with the hotel — runs the only continuously-operating French restaurant in Hanoi from the colonial period; Spices Garden handles the Vietnamese tasting programme; Angelina is the Italian-and-Mediterranean. The Bamboo Bar — opened with the hotel and still serving — is unambiguously the most historically significant hotel bar in Vietnam, with the original 1901 mahogany counter, the foreign-correspondents' booth where Graham Greene drafted parts of The Quiet American, and the Jane Fonda corner where she gave her 1972 wartime press interviews. The 1900s-period afternoon tea on the terrace is the most-recommended afternoon tea in Vietnam. The Path of History tour — opened to guests in 2012 after the rediscovery of the original 1968-built bomb shelter beneath the central courtyard — is the property's signature in-house cultural programme. The Le Spa programme runs eight treatment rooms; the outdoor pool is in the central courtyard.

The Hoan Kiem position is the unambiguous booking decision. From the front door it is two minutes to the Opera House, four minutes to Hoan Kiem Lake, six minutes to the Old Quarter (Hang Bac, Hang Gai, the 36 traditional streets), eight minutes to the Vietnamese Women's Museum and the Saint Joseph Cathedral, and twelve minutes by car to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the Temple of Literature. For travellers wanting the heritage-grand-hotel-and-cultural-programme booking — and for couples wanting the most-photographed Vietnam-era hotel set-piece — the Metropole is unambiguous. Capella is the design-and-Bensley alternative; Metropole is the heritage answer.

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