Room review: Inside the luxury hotel in Vietnam that has hosted Prince William and Angelina Jolie

The storied Metropole in Vietnam, a favourite of film stars, musicians and heads of state, offers unabashed luxury in the heart of Hanoi’s French Quarter.

The place

A Hanoi landmark since 1901 and built in the French colonial style, the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi rises like a wedding cake near the shores of tranquil Hoan Kiem lake.

Inside, it’s all dark wood and striped wallpaper; staff clad in white silk ao dai (a traditional Vietnamese tunic) greet us with “bonjour”. After a week spent in Hanoi’s bustling Old Quarter, with its jam-packed street stalls, jostling scooters and fug of incense, it feels like entering another world.

The history of the Metropole could (and has) filled a book. Built by French investors, it has hosted celebrities from Charlie Chaplin, who honeymooned there in the 1930s, to writers W Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene.

Taken over by the communist government in the 1950s, it was renamed the Reunification Hotel and became an official government guest house. Peace activists, including Jane Fonda and Joan Baez, stayed at the government’s invitation during the war.

From the 1960s-80s, the Metropole housed an array of embassies and United Nations agencies. It was renovated and reopened in the 1990s as the Pullman Hotel Metropole, before being acquired by the Sofitel chain.

More recently, it was the meeting place for United States President Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un in 2019, and contemporary guests include Angelina Jolie, Prince William and Mark Zuckerberg.

The space

The hotel has two wings – the original Metropole wing, which is closed (bar the lobby and restaurant) until the end of 2023 for renovations, and the modern Opera wing, which was completed in the 1990s. There are 364 rooms and suites spread between the two wings, with the bulk of those in the Opera wing.

Nestled between the wings is a lush, leafy courtyard, with a sapphire-blue pool, a spa and two outdoor bars. There’s a conference centre on the ground floor and a well-appointed gym.

The adjoining Metropole Arcade contains an array of luxury stores, for those wanting to pick up a new Hermès scarf or Bottega Veneta handbag before their next flight.

The room

We’ve booked a premium queen in the Opera wing. The interior is classic French Indochina: cream-coloured walls, Vietnamese silk cushions and black-and-white photos of Old Hanoi.

There are French windows, a combined shower and bathtub, a sturdy, dark-wood writing desk, and the most comfortable bed I’ve experienced in years.

The amenities

A flatscreen TV, Nespresso coffee maker, small fridge, wi-fi, Balmain toiletries, and both cotton and silk robes. There’s also an express laundry service, but when we realise it’d cost more than $100 to wash and dry our t-shirts and socks, we opt to get it done for cheap at a street laundry instead.

Food and drink

The Metropole boasts six eateries and bars – the Paris-inspired La Terrasse café, Vietnamese eatery Spices Garden, French haute cuisine restaurant Le Beaulieu, whisky lounge Angelina, the poolside Bamboo Bar and the airy cocktail bar Le Club, where a buffet breakfast is also served in the morning.

For $64 each, we get the usual pastries, cereals and eggs, as well as a selection of Vietnamese food, like pho, dragon fruit and bo la lot (grilled beef wrapped in betel leaves).

Worth stepping out for

The hotel is just metres from the historic Hanoi Opera House, which can be explored on an hour-long tour for $8. Further afield (about 15 minutes’ walk) is an unassuming bún chả restaurant named Bún Chả Hương Liên, also known as Bún Chả Obama.

In 2016, the former US president ate here with chef Anthony Bourdain as part of the latter’s TV programme, Parts Unknown. For about $8, you can get the same meal Obama ate: Bún chả (cold vermicelli noodles, sweet-and-sour-dipping sauce, pork belly and herbs), a deep-fried crab roll and a Hanoi beer. It’s fresh, filling and packed with flavour; you can see why the place is full to bursting every night.

Worth staying in for

A free tour of the hotel’s old bomb shelter, sealed and all but forgotten after the Vietnam War, until being rediscovered in 2011 during construction of the Bamboo Bar. The 45-minute tours run daily at 5pm and 6pm.

The concrete bunker is four metres underground and could accommodate up to 50 people, sometimes for hours at a stretch during the worst of the bombings. Our tour guide was herself a girl during the war and brings to life the blaring warnings, the mad scramble to get underground as the planes whizzed closer.

At the end, she plays us the track Where Are You Now, My Son, which Joan Baez wrote about her own time in the Metropole bunker in 1972. (A portrait that Baez painted in 2013 hangs in the hotel lobby, given as a gift for the shelter she received.)

The highlight

Lazing by the pool for hours, cold drink in hand, imagining myself as a famous writer from the 1930s.

The lowlight

Checking out and heading to our next hotel, a drab two-star which, while much more in our price range for a long-term stay, can’t hold a candle to the opulence of the Metropole.

Verdict

Rich with history and drenched with opulence, the Metropole is the perfect luxury escape from the intensity of Hanoi.

Essentials

Room rates start at $539 per night for a premium queen, rising to $1569 per night for a prestige suite. See: sofitel-legend-metropole-hanoi.com.

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