The InterContinental Robertson Quay: Small Space, Big Impact

I stayed in Singapore’s new InterContinental Hotel Robertson Quay just a few weeks after it opened last fall. Already, it felt like a well-oiled machine, in its brand new building, shiny in all the right places. It’s an InterContinental, so as one would expect, business needs are well taken care of. The surprise comes in how pleasant a place this is for leisure travelers. All the details below…

The Location: The hotel overlooks the Singapore River in the Robertson Quay area. It’s a wonderful, pedestrian-friendly pocket of a city that typically prioritizes vehicular transportation. The river is lined with restaurants and a few bars, with a crowd that mixes local, expat, and visitor. The Intercontinental’s Publico restaurant adds to the bunch, with its terrace spilling out to the walk along the river.

The Room: I stayed in a King Club River View Room, with its fairly tiny 250 square feet of space. I’d fault the room for being too small if it weren’t so perfectly conceived, like one of those impossibly designed studio apartments you see on HGTV. Plenty of drawers, two spots for suitcases, and a closet mean that even two people would be able to unpack. The seat next to the dining table/workspace was actually part of the wall, yet fully comfortable and the console between the bed area and bathroom also served as a suitcase rack and drawers. Tricks like this kept the space from feeling cramped, especially for me as a solo traveler. I’d have to test the room to see if that experience would hold with two people in it.

You could say there’s a masculine vibe to the room, except that would betray the extent to which this feminine human enjoyed staying in it. The color palette ranges from grey to navy, with some velvet throw in to soften it. An area rug sits atop a hardwood floor (which I think was actually composite, a more sensible choice in this climate). A leather armchair and ottoman tuck into a corner by the window.

The 49-inch television is embedded in the wall, a slick move that also frees up space. There’s additional high-tech gimmickry in the room—most notably with the shades, two layers of which come down or go up along an entire windowed wall with the push of a button. The room also features universal plugs, so no need for a converter.

The joys of hanging out in my room were manifold. Sitting at the table working or eating, there’s nothing between you and the floor-to-ceiling window—you’re in the impressive Singapore skyline, it feels like. I’ve decided recently that a good Bluetooth speaker is a baseline standard for hotel rooms in this class–the Bose sound system here fit the bill. And finally, another, less high-tech gimmick in the room kept me occupied one evening: the hidden cocktail bar, which is so fun, and also absurdly expensive, at about US $22 per cocktail mixed. All ingredients and barware are supplied, plus a few recipes. I’d like to see some more creative cocktail recipes to work from. But whatever, my vodka gimlet was fantastic (see video below).

The Bathroom: The bathroom dissolved into the main room, although a sliding wall created a separate space if one wanted. The sink was spacious and the toilet had a small room to itself. As I’ve come to expect in hotel rooms generally these days, the shower stall here faces directly into the room, with a glass door that is mildly transparent. We are a universe of exhibitionists, us travelers, or so all hotel shower designers seem to think. Given the size of the room, no surprise that there was no bathtub. On the plus side, the bath towels are gloriously huge and fluffy. I also appreciated the generous full length mirror.

The Common Areas: This isn’t a traditionally laid out hotel, especially for a chain like Intercontinental. The lobby and reception sit on the fourth floor, while the other common areas require an elevator back down to street level and an exit from the building. The gym, for example, is tacked on the front of the ground floor facing the street, with a separate entrance. The formal restaurant, Publico, and its more casual sibling, Publico Deli, where breakfast is served, also have separate entrances at street level.

Back upstairs, the lobby itself is small for this kind of hotel, but nicely done. It feels more comforting than corporate. Walk through it and past the elevator bank and there’s the Club Intercontinental, available to guests for a steeper nightly rate, which I had access to during my stay. The food and drinks were great—Veuve was part of the free nightly cocktail hour, and the snacks were all delicious. My only quibble: I wish there had been more lounge-y/sofa seating indoors in addition to the dining tables—the lounge areas outside were great, but outside is mostly a hot, muggy affair in Singapore.

Just off the lobby, the pool seems meant mostly for a quick dip, since it’s not situated in a space that gets a ton of direct sunlight nor has any food or drink option. It’s nice, but less impressive than some of the other hotel pools I’ve dunked into in Singapore.

Food and Drink: Publico serves Italian fare both inside its main dining room and out on the large terracing overlooking the river. In a region of the world that doesn’t specialize in it, the house-baked bread here delights. In New York City, this would be middle-of-the-road upscale Italian. In Italy, I doubt it would be considered Italian. But no matter, it was good, and I enjoyed the carb-fest.

I also had the buffet breakfast at Publico Deli, which was good all around—far less spectacular that the one at the Sofitel in Singapore, but as good as anyone will be expecting it to be, with a mix of dishes from the East and West.

The Verdict: I’d stay here again. The rooms are small but so well executed, and I suspect their diminutive footprints help keep the price lower than I might have expected for an Intercontinental in a pricey city like Singapore.