Melbourne hotels: Why you should stay at Hyde Melbourne Place for a movie-set feel

There’s something of a movie-set feel about Hyde Melbourne Place. Many of the guests seem like characters, made up by artists, dressed by wardrobe, playing the parts of well-heeled tourists.

My neighbours seem to have made it (whatever “it” might be — an HBO dark comedy, perhaps?). I feel serious luggage envy on eyeing their roller-bags and suitcases on the porters’ trolley.

Checking in is an oddly sensual experience. A strange movie clip of voluptuous lips, longing eyes and twisting bodies plays on loop on a giant screen behind the receptionists. Guests are issued with key cards that register your floor before you enter an elevator, although everybody tries first to select a number from the column of buttons inside the lift.

The rooms are kind of wonderful, in a fragmented, faintly unreal way. The decor supposedly celebrates “earth tones” though I’m entranced by the deep-blue drama of the bedroom wall. I find it as compelling as the city view from my window, which makes a fairly ordinary part of the Melbourne CBD look like a landscape painting hanging in a gallery.

It’s like being in a dream — and not everything makes sense. The wash basin is in the bedroom rather than the bathroom. The walk-in shower seems modelled on a public facility at a retro indoor pool. It boasts a high portal through which you can stand on tiptoes and look at the bed — or, more disturbingly, someone jumping on the mattress can spy you in the shower.

The gym showcases a Pilates reformer machine. I’ve never seen one of these in a hotel fitness centre and I wish I knew how to use it because the fit and attractive (of course) young character actor training on the equipment is a great advertisement for the workout.

Hyde Melbourne Place is designed for Pilates lovers, with Peaches Pilates streamed on demand to your in-room tablet and 45-minute guided Sunrise Sessions sometimes available, followed by a 15-minute Sonna LED meditation.

The hotel also loans out surprisingly comforting Sonna LED Light Therapy masks, which use red and near-infrared light to add a glow to street-stressed skin while making the wearer resemble a paper-bag Ned Kelly.

Breakfast is at Cleo rooftop bar, which is open all day and into the night and looks down (both physically and metaphorically) on other Melbourne rooftop bars. The coffee is good; the service is lovely; but the food doesn’t live up to its surrounds — as if it’s been cooked for the extras rather than the stars.

On the ground floor of the hotel is chef Ross Lusted’s Portuguese and Spanish restaurant Marmelo. One level below sits the supper-club-style underground DJ bar, Mr Mills. Guests looking to relax without anchovies, alcohol or house music can meet in the small, uncatered lounge overlooking the lobby and watch the receptionists check in film crews, movie moguls and screen stars — or, at least, glamorous tourists who look a bit like them.

HYDE MELBOURNE PLACE 130 Russell Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

PRICE From $266 (know we’d splash out on a “General Admission” room with large window and a Jardan Bear chair, from $285)

THE INSIDER Hyde Melbourne Place borrows its insistently funky opening-night vibe from Melbourne’s laneways, where street art has been successfully co-opted as public art. A short walk from the hotel is the famous (and always crowded with Instagrammers) Hosier Lane. AC/DC Lane is even closer. The Degraves Street birthplace of Melbourne’s graffiti-as-exterior-decoration culture is a 10 minute meander from the hotel.

hydehotels.com