I stayed at Newcastle's newest hotel - but it wasn't the rooms I was most impressed with
A new hotel is opening to the public on the Quayside this month, and we were given a sneak peak and the chance to stay overnight.
We all know how amazing Tyneside is, but persuading people to head to the North East and check out the delights of Newcastle and beyond may not be easy. Great train links aren’t always enough with the region sometimes feeling isolated due to its lack of proximity to other major cities.
Sometimes you need new food options and incredible hotels to make the difference; a home from home which feels comfortable and cosy in unfamiliar surroundings.
Enter Dakota. The hotel company has five sites across England and Scotland but is days away from opening its new hotel on the Quayside.
Taking over a former office block, the hotel boasts 118 rooms as well as a meeting room, bar, restaurant and even a cigar terrace and will be welcoming its first regular visitors from Saturday, March 29.
However, before then the site is welcoming in people to try out the new Quayside amenities including Dakota staff, people who used to call the building their workplace, and the press. So ten days before the team welcome their first customers, we we able to check out what’s on offer.
Dakota claim to not just be another hotel chain, it is more of an experience where the lighting, music and room temperature is carefully curated for the optimum experience. This is something you recognise when you walk in for the first time. The harsh lights of more low budget hotel chains are nowhere to be seen with soft lights and calming music setting the mood from the off.
We were given our room key from the friendly and attentive staff and headed up to the suite room which was given to us for the night which offered a double bed, two bathrooms as well as a separate seating area from the bed and stunning views over the Quayside and Tyne.
The hotel group describes itself as a restaurant with a hotel, rather than a hotel with food options with steak as its speciality, so after checking in and getting to know the team behind the new site, we had the chance to try a tasting menu created by the site’s chef who was brought to the North East by the company from Manchester.
If the concept behind the lighting and general feel of the hotel wasn’t enough to tell the group are trying to set themselves apart from the rest of the industry, the food was the cherry on top to show the hotel really means business in the city.
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Each meal was meticulously crafted with an amazing mix of textures and flavours with influences from across the world, matched with international wines from a sommelier who was excellent at explaining the concepts behind the decisions.
The restaurant and accompanying bar will be open for public bookings from the same day as the hotel opens to guests on Saturday, March 29. The site offers a stunning new upmarket option for those heading to the North East, as well as the locals among us who want to see what one of the best dining options in the city looks like - you won’t find much better than this!
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