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The slate-grey façade is a blank canvas, the perfect foil to the buzzing piazza with its red awnings, rubber chairs and sunken concrete banquettes. The main entrance is on one side, approached down a ramp. In the black reception area, which has low, purple lighting and brushed-concrete walls, room keys are stashed in 21 coloured cubes. A green-glass elevator swooshes up to stark corridors with coco-fibre floors and steel-grille ceilings. The bedrooms, decorated in smooth neutrals, have wooden floors and grey-velvet bed covers; custom-made tapestries and scarlet closets add splashes of colour. Hidden appliances make crafty use of limited space: moulded seats glide out of desks; vanity units fold out; bedside tables double as storage. The sea-green bathrooms have frosted-glass sliding doors, making open-plan bathing an option. The front bedrooms have
tiny cage balconies with see-through floors for surveying the scene below, but the split-level lofts on the top floor are better with snug sofas tucked below wooden stairs and the stars visible through 'eyelid' skylights (with remote-controlled blackout shades).
At ground level, the modern Mediterranean restaurant spills out at both the front and back, with double-sided sofas and a two-way cocktail bar so you can sit inside or out.
WHEN TO GO
July for shopping: the hotel is some distance from the city centre but within easy reach of numerous designer boutiques
ROOM TO BOOK
21, a corner suite with obvious cachet
CONTACT
Twentyone, Kolokotroni/Mykonou streets, Kifissia, Athens, Greece (00 30 210 6233331; fax: 6233330; www.twentyone.gr). Doubles from euro 150; suite 21 from euro 200 |
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