It's funky, fun, personal and charming.
Welcome to the QT Newcastle, which opens it doors to guests and the public on Thursday morning. And dogs are welcome, too.
The QT, on the corner of Hunter and Perkins streets, is a cornerstone of the East End development project undertaken by Iris Capital.
The 104-room hotel with 65 staff is managed by Event Hospitality through their QT brand. It is a sophisticated makeover of the historic David Jones building.
The boutique QT brand is known for artistic designs, lively food and beverage offer and good-times vibe.
The hotelier has made every effort to include top Newcastle and Hunter beverage and food brands, from Baked Uprising sourdough to Pukara Estate lambs and olive oil, to beers from Grainfed, Foghorn, Modus, Shout, to Earp Distillery's top gins and several Hunter Valley wines.
Forward bookings have been strong, QT Newcastle general manager Michael Stamboulidis said, drawing a mix of locals and interstate visitors eager to check it out. Online booking rates start around $350 for QT members, depending on the room and inclusion of breakfast.
Among the drawcards: you can bring your dog. It will cost an additional $150 - rooms are limited and pooches must weigh less than 20kg. Your pet gets its own bed, and yes, it's own menu (chef-prepared Steak Tartare, Risotto, Pasta, Puppycinos and Puppybowls).
"It's over the top. It's QT," Stamboulidis said of the dog menu.
QT Newcastle features a 100-seat Rooftop bar with with a Japanese food and beverage spin, the stylish Jana bar and grill on the ground floor with an emphasis on great steaks and great wine. Both dining venues are open to the public.
No two rooms in the hotel are the same, in part because of the need to preserve the building's historic facade and structural bones. And in part because QT likes to keep it colourful and unique, enhancing the customer experience.
"Every room has a different view, a different aspect," Stamboulidis said.
The most striking room is the Clocktower suite, which features a luxurious bathtub just beneath the building's restored clock. There are baths in 31 rooms.
There are two rooftop rooms with balconies facing on to Perkins Street.
Stamboulidis nominates Room 105 on the first floor as his top choice: "It's the room with the daybeds, and 4.3-metre ceilings, and beautiful gorgeous bay windows, and structural beams that were actually installed after the earthquake. So we built a beautiful daybed underneath the windows, across three of our rooms, but that's the largest. And you get so much history."
Nic Graham, the chief designer on the project, said his favourite quirk of QT Newcastle "is the design narrative of the moon and how we were able to re-interpret the moon in a number of different ways throughout the hotel. The nicest part of the idea behind the moon is the regeneration of the moon cycle and the regeneration of an old building."
