Hotel Hit Squad: Grit, grandeur and good-time vibes – how The Principal Blythswood Square captures the spirit of Glasgow
It’s something of an outrage that Glasgow doesn’t have better big hotels. It’s one of the most dynamic place in Europe, a city that has the cool of New York before they power-washed it to banality, and from The Glasgow Boys to Belle and Sebastian and Alasdair Gray, one of the richest cultural histories in the world.
I’ve been having a great time in Glasgow since the mid-Nineties, when I dated someone in the Merchant City and began bringing London friends up for the weekend. To a man they all agreed that this was a place that knew how to party so much better than Soho.
Nearly 10 years after it first opened, and when I first visited it, Blythswood Square has zero competition in the city when it comes to being grand, plush and looking like it’s actually in the 21st century. It was recently renamed The Principal Blythswood Square, one of the burgeoning brand’s UK city statement properties. All the guest rooms were revamped this year by Graven, the local design studio originally responsible. It has been a swish refresh with lots of grey (sofas, curtains, throws and cushions); tactile upholstery and marble bathrooms full of Elemis goodies.
It was quite splendid to begin with, and still eschews any of the trite tartan that poisons so many Scottish hotels. But time had taken its toll on the textiles. The monochrome lobby, with its fancy pillars and stairwell chandelier, looks as I remember it. As does the restaurant, which lends the hotel its incidentally meretricious theme, with scarlet-fringed lights that pay homage to the working girls who used to frequent the neighbourhood, and on-message cocktails (the “Roxanne” with gin and raspberry liqueur, because of course: “You don’t have to put on the red light… you don’t have to sell your body to the night”).
The restaurant is due an overhaul: While I like the overall Graven original look, from the omnipresent use of Harris Tweed upholstery to the photos of cars inside lampshades (the building was originally the Royal Scottish Automobile Club), mini-mirrored tiles have no place outside of a Balearic gay bar with a suspiciously generous happy hour.
As a destination and not just a hotel, it’s a mixed bag. The spa, with black on black wall graphics of thistles and a nocturnal ambience, still cuts it. If you don’t want to drive out to the Carrick Spa, this is the best day’s pampering to be found for miles. The gym, also in the basement, is a tiny, windowless disappointment. The heaviest dumbbell on the rack when I visited was 10kg, but there are a few machines designed for all-round workouts.
The food in the dining room is hit-and-miss, but more the former than the latter, and the menu is vast, attempting to be all things to all people. At dinner, a sous vide octopus starter desperately needed some exterior crunch. It came across a wee bit Whiskas. The filet mignon that followed, cooked on a Josper grill, was A-plus.
Similarly, a breakfast buffet appeared depressing, but an order of eggs Benedict was perfect. Service was consistently cheery and speedy. Upstairs, there’s a main bar and afternoon tea area, busy with local families celebrating birthdays on the Saturday I was there.
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On my recent visit, I was bumped-up to a stay at the Penthouse (£2,500 per night). This happens, apparently, when someone is in a top-tier room with an anniversary or if the hotel is entirely full – which it was. Most commonly the space is used for perfume launches and such.
The new Penthouse takes over a huge chunk of the fifth floor, with two bedrooms, a vast lounge, roof terrace, steam room and square-shaped sunken sci-fi bathtub that was useless when it came to working out how to control the water temperature, but did have a button to change the colour of its mood lighting. It also looked like you could commune with intergalactic entities once immersed.
As I always do when I visit Glasgow, I had a ball. The self-catering facilities of the Penthouse lend themselves to a house party: I invited six friends over and, having eaten in the restaurant already, I ordered us dinner from Rumours Kopitiam via Deliveroo rather than from room service, and over a long evening we worked our way through the numerous bottles of crémant my guests had brought, each flute mixed with a shot of Edinburgh Gin rhubarb and ginger liqueur.
It’s a cocktail that I invented a couple of years ago. Consider it, if you will, a Glasgow spritz. But it really doesn’t need a theme, it’s just delicious.
Rooms from £179, including breakfast. There are two fully adapted rooms.
Read the full review: Principal Blythswood Square Hotel
