After my stay in Langkawi at the St Regis, back to Kuala Lumpur, also at the St Regis. Hoping that the experience will be the same.

A hotel that is both well and poorly located

Like the Méridien Kuala Lumpur, there are two opinions on the location of the hotel, near the train station. Yes it is very well located because we are quickly at the station and from there in 20min to the airport but on the other hand it is in a business district neither very alive nor commercial what obliges to really move away from it if you want to do things. It is up to each one to see if the location is good according to his tastes.

However, unlike Le Meridien, it is served from the train station by a free private shuttle.

Arrival at the hotel and check-in

So I arrive at the station from the airport, quickly find the shuttle and 5 minutes later I am in the lobby of the hotel.

Lobby:

I am immediately taken care of. Having proceeded to the mobile check-in my key is already ready and after the traditional welcome protocol reserved for members of the loyalty program and a quick signature I am led to my room.

With the help of the loyalty program, I was upgraded from a standard room to a St Regis Suite.

The St Regis Suite at The St Regis Kuala Lumpur

I am on floor 13A. A strange number? Not when you know that the number 4 is considered as bad luck in many countries of Southeast Asia that there even if we are in Malaysia, the importance of this clientele makes that they do not take any risk. Here the 13A replaces the 14.

So I am led to my suite. I can pretty much see what to expect, as upgrades work very well at Starwood it’s not the first time I’ve been bumped up to a suite. Well, this is proof that you should always expect to be surprised because I was not expecting this type of product at all for a so-called “standard” suite, the smallest in the property.

We enter by a small vestibule which gives directly on the living room…and what a living room. Even at the W Doha, which until now has been my reference in terms of surface, I had never experienced this.

It is simply gigantic.

There is a lounge area, a dining area, an office area, a bar area and overall a lot of space and volume. As always at St Regis, sobriety is key and the marble floor is of the best effect.

And it is even more beautiful at night in my opinion.

In a 360° view

On the lounge table, a little attention from my butler, one of the particularities of St Regis.

Then the bedroom.

Not particularly big but anyway we only sleep there, life being elsewhere.

Le St Regis Bed est toujours aussi imposant et confortable.

The TV is of course a good size.

In 360°…

Here, smartly, the marble has been replaced by carpeting.

Next to it is the dressing room. In Paris there are bedrooms that are smaller.

Then the bathroom with a view on the city.

And something to watch TV while taking a bath or shower.

And finally the…massage room. In fact, if the client is too lazy to go to the spa for a treatment, the spa staff can come to him.

What to say? Even though I am used to beautiful properties with large surfaces, for an entry-level suite it is both huge and tasteful (the two do not always go together).

A real living space that is not without some drawbacks: it is still difficult to leave your room in the morning to go to the city and overall it makes you want to spend more time there than is reasonable compared to what you can do elsewhere.

The visit in video to finish.

Facilities: without flavor or reproach

As one would expect, the St Regis Kuala Lumpur has a number of facilities for its guests.

Let’s start with the gym.

It is large, bright, well equipped, absolutely nothing to complain about.

A small separate studio will delight floor exercise enthusiasts.

The hotel has two rooftop pools, one next to the other.

Right next to it and overlooking it you can see one of the hotel’s bars/restaurants.

What to say….there is the view, the service, a lot of wind (at least the day I was there) but at a time when hotels are competing with ingenuity to make their pools unique, attractive, to make it a marker of the identity of the hotel, here we are in the greatest classicism.

The good news is that you can at least swim there and not just dip.

Let’s get to the spa.

Not surprisingly, it has a luxurious approach.

The treatment rooms are very large and the treatments are of high quality.

But as in Langkawi, apart from the treatments, there are no “facilities” such as a sauna or a jacuzzi to be experienced at the client’s convenience. In a hotel of this range this is really regrettable.

On the other hand, as I said above, if you stay in a hotel suite the spa can come to you…

Bar and restaurant at the highest level

It remains to discover the “food and beverage”.

Let’s start with the “flagship” bar of the St Regis Kuala Lumpur which is not called “St Regis Bar” but “Astor Bar” in honor of the founding family of the brand.

It is hidden behind a heavy wooden door that opens at the touch of a button.

Inside we find the codes of the house bars, namely America and New York of the early twenty-first century in a “modernized” version.

As usual at St Regis, the cocktail menu includes the Bloody Mary and some of its variations, a cocktail that the chain did not create but popularized in the 1930s. There are also classics and, above all, an impressive list of in-house creations.

I tested some of them during my stay. It’s good, sophisticated, impeccably executed and the staff is simply fantastic: friendly, efficient and knowledgeable.

The property is also very well equipped in terms of catering. I tested three of his restaurants.

The first is “La Brasserie”, a restaurant oriented towards modern and international cuisine. The night I dined there a famous chef was proposing a “Healthy” menu. The good news is that it allowed me to discover his creations, the bad news is that the obligatory nature of the menu prevented me from discovering the real menu.

Very nice setting, airy, in a very “European” style.

Open kitchen as it is increasingly the case.

Fine and impeccably presented dishes.

A faultless performance even if I regret not having been able to test the “real” menu of the property.

Let’s go up a bit more with the “Genza Tenkuni”, a Japanese restaurant where I tasted the tempura menu.

In spite of the excellent reputation of the place, I was more than skeptical. My experience as a French is that I usually equate tempura with “grease that oozes out of the plate”, not really what I like as food.

Here everything is of course prepared in front of you by the chef. As you do so, the different pieces are placed on a plate in front of you, on a white sheet of paper, so that you can put them on your plate. The goal of the maneuver: to show that with perfectly controlled cooking you can make tempura that don’t give the impression of having spent the evening in a tub of oil.

Result: a pleasure for the eyes and the taste buds.

All that separates the real Japanese gastronomy from its ersatz that we find too often.

And to finish, precisely, the “Taka” by “Sushi Saito”. The parent restaurant, in Japan, is Michelin starred. And there it will be a sushi tasting menu.

Same comment as for the previous one: it is very high level, the experience is in the plate but also around, in the preparation.

And the result:

A very high quality experience. On the other hand, let’s be clear about the two Japanese restaurants: if the prices are largely lower than what an equivalent service costs in France, it is still expensive, even very expensive for Malaysian prices. But it is worth it.

Bottom line: almost flawless.

A priori when you go to this kind of hotel you know what to expect. However, we have to admit that we are sometimes disappointed, so congratulations to the St Regis Kuala Lumpur for keeping its promise.

Absolutely no flaw and a high level of attentive service.

A few regrets about the pool, which we would like to be more welcoming, or the spa, which we would like to see offer more relaxation options, but apart from that, it’s a no-fail experience.