We are partaking of breakfast in an almost empty restaurant just before we check out. We put down the paucity of both patrons and waitstaff to the usual puja preoccupations. Unlike most hotels’ design DNA dictates, the Novotel Kolkata’s puts the main all-day F&B venue just off the lobby. Except ‘just off’ is a long enough distance that it is only as we actually step out into the portico that we realise we had it wrong — there was a people magnet on the front steps, this bespectacled bore called Sourav Ganguly.
And that’s because the lobby is so long and the bar (you almost walk through it to get to the bakery-confectionery which borders the open face of the Square) ditto. The intervening elevator wells are just there on the way, and hardly make any interruption in this corridor that stretches one’s usual notion of a lobby like a limo. But that is the shape of things here — cleverly designed to extend the sense of space.
The gently curving arc of the main building is capped with glass curtain walls so that the corridors seem endless, even when you round the bend and have the end in sight. The swimming pool is large, but the eye imagines it as more expansive still because of the tiers of small pools ranked above it like a rapids, including the diminutive and darling kiddie pool. The separate convention block with 2,346 sq ft of conference space expands the entrance portico sideways. The Square restaurant seems more an oblong, and glass walls on either side seem to spill the seating on to the street on one side, and over the smoker-friendly verandah into the pool on the other. The pool bar seating edging past the loungers has more decorative pools edging it. The deli display is tall, tall, tall — sehr toll, as the Germans say, and trés French in its emphasis on great boulangerie and magnifique macarons (parent company Accor originates in France).
Even the simplest of the 347 guestrooms are cleverly designed for an impression of space and comfort. Beverage stations and minibar are neatly recessed into walls. Next to the panoramic curtain-glass windows, the ergonomic and nap-friendly chaise/daybed that is a Novotel hallmark makes it easy to work without lying abed, snack while working, and feel quite creative while you’re ditching the desk. The bathroom amenities are superlative, and those in suites and apartments have a choice of TV screens and desks to occupy. Which is a good thing indeed, since alas the view of a subcity in the making is less than prepossessing even with the pujo glitter sprinkled over all of our Gotham City landfills, stagnant ponds and monsoon-streaked concrete. Meanwhile, for women travellers, there is extra security with door cameras, female staff for all room services and escort from the airport, and extra comfort with a special amenity tray.
Speaking of pujo, what of that great Bengali preoccupation, the pet pujo (tummy worship)? Well, the wheels of Bengal bureaucracy grind notoriously slow, so that the bar with floor-to-ceiling wine cellar has no licence to pour much apart from the glorious autumn sunlight that streams in through the walls — though the menu looks very promising and well-priced, especially for New World acquisitions. And the Chinese restaurant, which will surely have the chowhounds happy in the city that loves Tangra, is not expected to fire up its woks until the Year of the Goat. But the goat is already well cooked at the multicuisine Square, in kosha mangsho to go with the luchi, as well as a kathi roll we would have liked to see a bit more kebabi. However, the ‘Continental’ and Anglo-Indian were excellent — the chop-cutlet colonial genre as well as beautiful pasta, fish and vegetables in more contemporary avatars. I, for one, was cheered up by Chinese noodles and Japanese soups for breakfast and Tibetan thukpa for lunch, as much as by the exquisite croissant even Poirot would declare perfect. But what was even more impressive was the cabinet of homemade flavoured yogurts and muesli, the Indian-inflected chocolates, and the excellent adrak chai with the Bengali breakfast platter of kochuri and ghugni. And the biryani was a good one, which is a nice change from many a hoary hotel I have inhabited.
You will likely need the light-filled gym or pool to recover, though you might be waylaid by the truly gorgeous spa suites-with-a-pool-view. We certainly found it very difficult to walk away from the luxurious couple treatments and the ayurvedic massage table. It took a ristretto from our in-apartment coffee capsule to recover from the exertion of parting from such pleasures.
There are other excellences to come, like a banquet terrace being finished up for 1,000-odd guests on the rooftop of the convention block, which has its own separate lobby and 19,000 sq ft of meeting spaces in various permutations. That is, by any reckoning, a generous amount of space. Also generous are the tariffs for larger suites and apartments, that are on par with many a normal five-star guestroom, despite the fantastic amenities. And in Kolkata, where such things as internet cafés are still a thing, the freedom to use the in-lobby Mac stations for even non-resident guests and free use of the French branded toys in the children’s play area must count for a good deal too.
It is a grand hotel, any way you weigh up the Novotel, and — despite its brand name — it isn’t relying on novelty alone, for all its aesthetic contemporaneity.
The information
Location CF-11, Action Area 1C, New Town, Rajarhat; 15 minutes from the airport
Accommodation 251 superior rooms, 36 premier rooms, 24 studio apartments, 24 one-bedroom apartments and 12 deluxe suites
Tariff Rs 8,000 (superior room), Rs 10,000 (premier room), Rs 12,000 (studio apartments), Rs 16,000 (one-bedroom apartments) and Rs 18,000 (deluxe suites)
Contact 033-40323333, novotel.com