"Remember when some places used to call themselves art hotels, for the sake of a few second-rate daubings on the walls? Well, this opened in 2013, a key player in Oslo’s waterside reboot, and has the sort of collection many urban galleries would kill for. There’s a genuflecting bronze by Antony Gormley outside by the revolving doors, a Julian Opie animation in the lift, and you’ll spot pieces by Warhol, Richard Prince, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Tony Cragg dotted around the public spaces. The Thief is the work of Petter Stordalen, who drives a biofuel-powered Ferrari and has banned bacon in his hotels for sustainability reasons, and straddles the water on the reclaimed islet of Tjuvholmen, a sheeny-shiny place of glinting bridges and new builds, many of which are home to small independent galleries. The spa and pool are accessed via a secret underground tunnel—locals come for the Sauna Guss experience—and rooms are clad in touchy-feely textures, golds, and grays, with picture windows to slide wide open for gulps of Nordic sea air from the harbor below. The rooftop FoodBar restaurant, led by British chef David Taylor, has fun with regional ingredients (scallops, turnips, monkfish, lamb neck), and the bar has helped up Oslo’s cocktail game (try the Michael Jackson and Bubbles—rum, banana cordial, green tea, Champagne, in a ceramic monkey head). Oslo’s overflowing oil wealth meant this was a city that never bothered itself unduly with drawing visitors, but that’s changed and it now rocks a go-getting international outlook—this is the best place to feel you’re part of that." - CNT Editors
