Get there before the guidebooks do
The Drake Hotel
It's a living cultural exhibit and downtown neighbourhood hub, a jubilant jig through art, technology and leisure. The bohemian boutique hotel (with 19 'crash pads') is part art salon, part performance space and a darned fine hangout. Owner Jeff Stober bought the 110-year-old hotel and spent HK$30 million on renovations that respect the structure's history while adding colour and whimsy to every nook and cranny. Check the wall-sized chalkboard in the lobby displaying the Big Bang Theory, mathematically expressed in handwritten scrawls, alongside terrazzo floors and stainless steel railings. Note the glass-bulb digital counter in the lounge (below) that clicks over every time someone walks in. Then, there's the ink blot mural, masterfully mismatched retro furniture and antique knick-knacks. Each room comes with a flat-screen TV, luggage rack, hand-stitched sock doll and see-through bathroom (1150 Queen Street West, tel: [1] 416 531 5042,
www.thedrakehotel.ca).
Ultra Supper Club In the flush 80s, Charles Kabouth introduced Toronto to the VIP lounge and velvet rope concept with his upscale nightclub, Stillife, while Brenda Lowes opened her restaurant, Bamboo. Last December, they joined forces in a new restaurant (on the old Bamboo site) to resurrect the decadence of those halcyon days, catering to the now older, but still indulgent, set. Patrons may no longer sip HK$2,500 bottles of champagne through straws, but they'll easily throw down as much for a meal at this HK$17 million brick, dark wood and lit glass temple to opulent noshing. Try the foie gras consomme, sip a French martini (Chambord liqueur, pineapple juice and vodka), or party like it's 1985 three nights a week, when tables give way to a dance floor and live DJ (314 Queen Street West, tel: [1] 416 263 0330).
Canteena
Once a quirky Latin-Asian fusion diner beloved by locals and known as Azul's, it's been re-invented as a darkly funky watering hole for downtown arty types who do the cocktail circuit. The tiny lounge and antipasta bar still offers sumptuously eclectic treats. Try the Azul Platter of duck terrine, cheese grits with corn salsa and crostini, mojito cocktails with fresh mint or the Caipirinha, made with cachaca - Brazilian sugarcane liquor and a whole lime. Food and spirits are the draw, but it's the cosy black and aubergine interiors rimmed by cushy, bench seating and red-gold Spanish accents that invite guests to linger. Live DJs spin 1980s retro, R&B and House three nights a week (181 Bathurst Street, tel: [1] 416 703 9360).
Stillwater Spa
In the basement of the Park Hyatt hotel in trendy Yorkville district, this oasis takes pampering to rarefied levels, and is the only Canadian spa awarded four stars in Mobil's America's Best Hotel & Resort Spas guide. Visitors will experience the calming sound of running water and string and flute music, and the scent of ginger tea (custom created for the spa by Canadian parfumeur Suzanne Lang). Treats include Aqua Therapy (shiatsu massage while being stretched in a warm, aquamarine pool), Do Cho massage (two masseuses working in tandem) and Vichy water treatment (massage under jet spray). Celebrities and ladies-who-lunch frequent this marbled space, and shop in the boutique upstairs, which carries Deborah Lippmann nail varnish (as worn by Mariah Carey and Sarah Jessica Parker, who has her own colour) and Christophe Robin hair products from France (4 Avenue Road, tel: [1] 416 926 2389,
www.stillwaterspa.com).
Boa Redux
Next to a shopping mall on the main strip of the city's biggest Chinatown, this former porn theatre's 15,000sqft space is now dedicated to all-night dancing. It gets going about 2am and doesn't stop until noon. The winding, two-level concrete building houses a lounge in marble and wood, with a multi-level dance floor upstairs, replete with North America's first fully integrated Alpha Concept Sound System, reportedly costing about HK$1.7 million. It's the best in the country, as tested by some of the world's finest DJ talent, from Jeff Mills to Satoshie Tomie. A mix of hi-tech sound, low-brow style, gay club and rave, the only thing revellers at Boa Redux have in common is the pursuit of a good time. Be warned: it's unlicensed, so load up before you go (270 Spadina Avenue. tel: [1] 416 977 1111,
www.boa-redux.com).
