Toronto glamour

By Crystal Luxmore

Escape the paparazzi at the vintage-Hollywood-inspired Hazelton Hotel.

The Hazelton is Toronto’s most luxurious hiding spot. Even the dark modern entrance, set back from the cobblestone, boutique-lined street in posh Yorkville, is designed to be discreet. As I arrive, two bellhops swing open the tall glass doors, revealing a 4-m-tall (13-ft) stack of silver suitcases. The sculpture, by offbeat local artist Bruno Billio, is a hint at the fabulous artwork I’ll find around every corner.

In the hotel’s 62 rooms and 15 suites, guests get the same A-list treatment as celebrity visitors like Brangelina and Jude Law, who hide away here during the Toronto International Film Festival. Deluxe espresso machines, use of the Silver Screening Room (a state-of-the-art private cinema) and a pillow menu are special touches, but staff will do nearly anything for guests that a personal butler would – just ask.

My suite, designed by Yabu Pushelberg – the Canadian team behind Tiffany’s in New York – is very film noir: Oversized gray leather panels wrap around the bed, which is topped with a camel-colored silk throw and set against dramatic black-and-white damask-papered walls. In the studio-sized bathroom, you just flick the “warm” switch to heat up mammoth floor slabs of forest-green galaxy granite before padding over to the deep soaker tub.

I hit the spa mid-afternoon for a “Hazelton manicure.” My hands are scrubbed with brown sugar and vanilla and massaged with hot stones, and nails painted Las Vegas maroon. To prolong the pampered-starlet feeling, I splash out on a bottle of the Spa’s homemade elixir (an earthy, subtle signature scent of lavender, geranium, cypress and thyme) for home.

By evening, celebrity chef Mark McEwan’s restaurant, One, is packed with guests and chic Torontonians dining on everything from lobster spoons to pork terrine to decadent cocoa-crusted caribou spiced with chocolate and pickled blueberries. I head through the bronze-draped space to the bar for a pear and ginger champagne and rub shoulders with a crowd that’s warm, sophisticated and understated – not unlike The Hazelton itself.

Getting here

The Hazelton Hotel, 118 Yorkville Ave., 1-866-473-6301, thehazeltonhotel.com
Ontario Tourism, 1-800-ONTARIO (1-800-668-2746), ontariotravel.net

Crystal Luxmore is a freelance writer who shares her love of Toronto as the founder of Walk T.O.

Top Banner photo: Collage Photography / Veer