OPULUXELtd.com LIFESTYLE===}}{{=== DESIGN
___oOo___EVENT Planning___oOo___LUXURY eStore___oOo___TRAVEL Agency___oOo___Archive for France
The World’s Top 10 Most Peculiar Restaurants via [delish]
Be the first in your friends to like it
The Weirdest Restaurants in the World
Ever eat in Alcatraz? Dine on Mars? Then it’s about time you get a taste of some of the wackiest, weirdest, out-of-this-world restaurants.
For more strange places to eat, check out this video of the the world’s top 10 most peculiar restaurants.
| Hardwired Host |
Restaurant: Hajime Restaurant, Bangkok, Thailand
Culinary Concept: Robot run. Owner Lapassarad Thanaphant (pictured) has high hopes for her robot-run restaurant. Thanaphant invested nearly $1 million to purchase four dancing (yes, they also dance!) robots who serve diners Japanese delicacies.
| Eating with Sharks |
Restaurant: Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, Rangali Island, Maldives
Culinary Concept: Fish-eye view. Ever dine on octopus and oysters surrounded by octopus and oysters? Well, you can do just that at the luxurious Ithaa restaurant beneath the Indian Ocean. Ithaa, meaning “pearl,” sits between three and six feet below sea level (depending on the tides) and weighs over 200 tons, so the chef won’t drift out to sea. On the menu: crustaceans and wild game.
| New Meaning for Noodle Bowl |
Restaurant: Modern Toilet, Taipei, Taiwan
Culinary Concept: Bathroom themed. If you’re into poop jokes (and can get over the gross-out factor), then you will find this toilet-themed restaurant plenty entertaining. Guests slurp up Asian noodles from commode-shaped bowls while sitting on their very own can. Keep the seat down.
| On the Rocks |
Restaurant: Laino Snow Village Ice Restaurant, Ylläsjärvi, Finland
Culinary Concept: Ikea meets igloo. Just north of the Arctic Circle the winters are cold enough to sustain Snow Village’s Ice Restaurant for the season. Inside the 200-square-meter all-natural ice structure, diners sit on solid-ice chairs at solid-ice tables while savoring local fare like cream of Lappish potato soup with cold smoked salmon, tender reindeer, and game meatballs served with — what else? — vodka-lingonberry jelly.
| Floating in Air |
Restaurant: Dinner in the Sky, worldwide
Culinary Concept: Suspended supper. Dinner in the Sky brings new meaning to alfresco dining. If you have $40,000 to spare, you and 21 of your closest friends can lavishly dangle 150 feet above any city (or golf course) while conspicuously consuming beef and foie gras mille-feuille (savory layered puff pastry) and sipping Dom Pérignon.
| Foodie Forest |
Restaurant: Yellow Treehouse Restaurant, Auckland, New Zealand
Culinary Concept: Treehouse treats. Using resources from inside the Yellow Pages, Pacific Environments architects constructed this pod-shaped eatery accessed by an 180-foot “treetop” walkway. There, 18 diners savored a multicourse menu that included pan-fried lamb loins with baby beetroot and mandarin salad with caramelized garlic. (Unfortunately, the restaurant was just a temporary project and has since closed.)
| Wine for Whiners |
Restaurant: Le Refuge des Fondus, Paris, France
Culinary Concept: Bottle service. As rumor has it, this favorite tourist attraction in the Montmartre neighborhood first began offering patrons wine in baby bottles as a way to avoid the French tax on wine served in proper glasses. While sucking down the grape juice, winos can fill their bellies with toothsome cheese or beef fondues.
| Life on Mars |
Restaurant: Mars 2112, Times Square, New York City
Culinary Concept: Earthling eats. NASA predicted by 2112 we’d be making commercial flights to Mars. Why wait for the airfare wars when you can pay a visit right in New York’s Times Square? Upon arrival, friendly Martians guide hungry earthlings into the hot, dry, red planet, where they can dine on the Martian Seafood Platter — exotic ocean shellfish, squid, shrimp, mussels with a spicy seafood sauce.
| Beverages Behind Bars |
Restaurant: Alcatraz E.R., Tokyo, Japan
Culinary Concept: In(ti)mate atmosphere. If you were ever curious (and who isn’t?) about life in a medical prison, Tokyo’s Alcatraz E.R. will serve that sentence. Diners are handcuffed upon arrival and taken to their “cells,” where they can choose from a list of bizarre elixirs served in blood-transfusion apparatus by hospital orderlies.
| Dining in the Dark |
Restaurant: Opaque, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, CA
Culinary Concept: Blind taste-test. At Opaque, patrons are led into the restaurant by visually impaired or blind employees to experience dining in the dark. The absence of light allows the senses to spring into action, enhancing the smell, taste, and texture of favorites like luscious mango panna cotta with coconut crème anglaise.
| The Long and Winding Road |
Culinary Concept: Roller-coaster service. At this futuristic eatery, the waitstaff is a thing of the past. Guests place their orders via a touch-screen computer at each table. When the food — which, according to the restaurant, is based primarily on local, organic ingredients and cooked with minimal fat — is ready, it zips to the table along a twisting track from the kitchen above.
| Ancient Japanese Underworld |
Restaurant: Ninja New York, New York, NY
Culinary Concept: Japanese warrior fare. Forget Ninja Turtles. This Japanese venue with a labyrinth-like interior was modeled after an ancient Ninja castle. After your waiter impresses you with his gravity-defying acrobatics, dine on the Katana, a $50 prime steak marinated in teriyaki sauce, and finish the ninja-filled night with the smoking piña colada-assorted diced fruits with a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream sinking in a mysterious pineapple coconut pond. Don’t forget your sword.
| Food Flight |
Restaurant: The Airplane Restaurant, Colorado Springs, CO
Culinary Concept: Mile-high meals. Onboard this grounded 1953 Boeing KC-97 tanker, diners feast on atypical airline food like the Reuben von Crashed — tender corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Thousand Island dressing served on fresh marble rye bread.
The List of the Top 10 Most Unusual Hotels Worldwide. via [Quality Junkyard]
|
OPULUXE Lounge Grooves™ PlayList
Top 10 Craziest Hotels in the World
1. Capsule Hotel, Netherlands: a hotel made out of a survival pod
Your own survival pod! Escape pod hotel in a city centre dock location. Moored in The Hague, your room is a bright orange survival pod which once saw service on an oil rig platform. Originally built in 1972 they are 4.25 metres in diameter and unaltered apart from the addition of a lock on the outside and an ‘emergency’ chemical toilet inside. While not everyone’s luxury choice, each pod provides cosy protection from the elements for up to three occupants.
First created for accommodation as an art project in 2004, owner Denis Oudendijk has 8 different models ready for use and is currently working on additional locations in central Amsterdam and Nantes, France.
2. Everland, Paris: a hotel which parks in unusual places with amazing views
Everland is a hotel with only one room including a bathroom, a king-size bed and a lounge. What makes it so different is that – because it is also an art installation – this hotel travels! The Everland has been ‘parked’ in the most unsual places, like the roof-deck of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Leipzig, Germany, or the roof of Palais de Tokyo (with a spectacular view on the Eiffel Tower) in Paris.
Considering how unique a night in this hotel is, the price is not so crazy: you can get the only room and the unique view for 333 Euros during the week, 444 Euros during the weekends.
3. Hôtel de Glace, Canada – an ice hotel opened only during winter
Made entirely of ice and snow, this unique one-story structure has been rebuilt each year since 2000. The 9th season of the Ice Hotel lasted from January 4th through March 29th 2009. The Ice Hotel has become an unparalleled and world-famous winter experience. It takes 5 weeks, 500 tons of ice, and 15,000 tons of snow to craft the Ice Hotel with its ceilings as high as 18 feet, walls covered with original artwork and furniture carved from ice blocks.
4. Waterworld Hotel, China – an amazing aquatic themed hotel
Atkin’s Architecture Group won first prize for an international design competition with this stunning entry. Set in a spectacular water filled quarry in Songjiang, China, the 400 bed resort hotel is uniquely constructed within the natural elements of the quarry. Underwater public areas and guest rooms add to the uniqueness, but the resort also boasts cafes, restaurants and sporting facilities.
5. Sala Silvergruva, Sweden: a single room hotel inside a silver mine
Picture this… A single suite, 155m underground in historic Sala Silvermine, one of the world’s best preserved mine settings. (During its heyday, production amounted to more than 3 tons of silver a year and a total of more than 400 tons of silver and about 40,000 tons of lead were extracted – completely by hand!) If you wake up in the middle of the night and have to use the bathroom, make sure you turn right or else you’ll end up exploring dark winding galleries, vast caverns and magic lakes.
6. Das Park Hotel, Austria: a hotel where rooms are made of concrete pipes
A hotel with rooms made of giant concrete sewage pipes might sound a little odd, but this artistic creation can be recreated to provide cheap lodging anywhere. These 9,5 tonne concrete sections are a standard item in near all concrete factories and the oden floors, a really comfortable double bed, minibar and room service through to 1am. For night owls, the reception is open 24hrs. With the amazing view below there is little else needed, except if you’re staying in bed past 10am, when pajamas would be a wise thing to wear, as although you can look out – tourists can look in
7. The De Vrouwe van Stavoren Hotel, Netherlands: a hotel made from recycled wine barrels
The De Vrouwe van Stavoren Hotel in the Netherlands salvaged four wine casks from Switzerland and converted them into rooms. Formerly filled with 14,500 liters of Beaujolais wine from the French chateau, each now holds a modest two-person room with standard amenities and even an attached bathroom and a sitting room.
The one thing that might bother you, if you’re not a wine enthusiast, is the smell of wine that the barrels still maintain. All in all the Barrel Hotel, in Stavoren, northern Netherlands, makes for a very pleasurable experience. General rates for a cask room are from 74-119 Euros a night with discounts of up to 75% off depending on season. If you go in the wintertime, a wine cask room can be as low as 18 Euros a night, cheaper than most hostels.
8. Giraffe Manor, Kenya: a hotel where you dine with a friendly giraffe
This small and exclusive hotel — surrounded by 140 acres of indigenous forest just outside Nairobi — is famous for its resident herd of giraffe. It’s the only place in the world where you can enjoy the experience of feeding and photographing the giraffe over the breakfast table, at the front door or while you dine, and the giraffes poke their heads through the window.
As well as the giraffe, the property is also home to many species of birds, large families of warthogs and the elusive Bush Buck.
9. Hotel Im Wasserturm, Germany: a hotel inside a water tower
Rising high above Cologne, this international luxury hotel was once the largest water tower in 19th century Europe. In 1990, French designer Andrée Putman transformed it into an elegant 78-room hotel.
Classified as a heritage site, the timeless modern design still manages to preserve the water-tower architecture and a sense of refuge and protection.
10. Jumbo Hostel (Stockholm): World’s First Aircraft Inn
Stockholm is the house of this wacky hotel, the first aircraft inn. An abandoned Boeing 747 jumbo jet has been saved from being trashed metal to become a 25-room hotel sited in Stockholm-Arlanda airport. Each room is bare 65 square ft big and furnished with bunk beds, overhead luggage storage and flat-screen TVs. There is a reception area and a cafe with toilets and showers at the rear of the aircraft, which means that you will have to share! The upper deck is a conference room and the best of all, the cockpit, is where the wedding suite is housed. Not a very comfy hotel I would think, but staying there just to get a feel of it might be cool.
The Most Expensive Hotels around the Globe. via [WSJ]
Diplomats Help Boost Rates at World’s Most Expensive Hotels
by Tara Loader Wilkinson
provided by
 Starwood Hotels |
| The Royal Penthouse Suite at the President Wilson Hotel in Geneva commands $65,000 a night for its four-bedroom penthouse. |
Amid the recession, rock stars, diplomats and other celebrities find
solace from the doom and gloom by spending their time in sanctuary
provided by the world’s most luxurious, and expensive, hotels. While
many of us are tightening our belts, shortening our summer holidays or
even abandoning them, hoteliers to the rich and famous claim to have no
trouble filling their most exclusive accommodations, and in the case of
the most expensive suite in the world, managing to double its rate to
$65,000 (€45,642) a night.
In an annual survey by Financial News’ sister publication Wealth
Bulletin, the Royal Penthouse Suite at the President Wilson Hotel in
Geneva, Switzerland, tops the list as the most expensive hotel room in
2009, commanding $65,000 for its four-bedroom penthouse — twice as much
as patrons paid a year ago for its luxurious setting and views of Lake
Geneva and Mont Blanc.
The hotel’s management puts the rise down to “buoyant demand” from
government officials and U.N. diplomats.
Last year’s winner, the iconic Ty Warner Penthouse at the Four
Seasons Hotel in New York, came second this time, at $35,000, $1,000 up
from last year.
New entries this year were the third-placed Presidential Suite at the
Hotel Cala di Volpe in Sardinia, the Villa La Cupola Suite at the
Westin Excelsior in Rome and the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton
in Tokyo.
Despite the past year’s financial and economic turmoil, prices at the
best hotel suites have risen by an average of 10% this year. Herbert
Ypma, founder of the Hip Hotels brand, said: “The very high end hasn’t
suffered all that much. A lot of hotels used to having upmarket
clientele are getting the benefit of them taking far more time off than
usual — so they have more time to stay in hotels. Money was never the
issue, time was.”
Hoteliers said that although the number of business travellers has
fallen in the past year, government officials have taken their place in
the best rooms and suites.
President Barack Obama and his entourage took over the entire
Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow for three nights in June. The President
Wilson Hotel said heads of state and other high-level government
officials are fuelling demand for its hugely expensive Royal Penthouse
Suite.
Vivian Deuschl, spokeswoman for Ritz-Carlton Hotels, said demand is
also coming from wealthy leisure travellers: “Last year they might have
taken three or four cheaper holidays. This year they are taking one big
vacation, but pulling out all the stops.”
The 10 most expensive hotel suites according to Wealth Bulletin’s
survey for 2009 are:
 Four Seasons |
| The library of the Ty Warner Penthouse at New York’s Four Seasons Hotel. |
1. The Royal Penthouse Suite, President Wilson Hotel, Geneva
— $65,000 per night
Complete with a cocktail lounge, the Royal Penthouse Suite at the
President Wilson is so exclusive that bookings reportedly have to be
made through the hotel’s chairman. The suite occupies the entire top
floor of the hotel. It is reached by a private elevator, has four
bedrooms overlooking Lake Geneva and Mont Blanc and comes with six
bathrooms. Equipped with bulletproof windows and doors, it is almost
exclusively reserved for celebrities or state heads, ideal with the
United Nations headquarters a five-minute drive away.
2. Ty Warner Penthouse, Four Seasons Hotel, New York —
$35,000 per night
Business at the Ty Warner Penthouse at the Four Seasons Hotel in New
York has remained as buoyant as when the suite opened in 2007, according
to a spokeswoman. The nine-room suite has walls inlaid with thousands
of pieces of mother-of-pearl. There is an indoor-outdoor Zen garden, a
private spa room with a screen of living bamboo and a book-lined
library, which has a grand piano at its centre.
3. The Presidential Suite, Hotel Cala di Volpe, Costa
Smeralda, Sardinia — $34,000 per night
The Presidential Suite at Hotel Cala di Volpe near Porto Cervo,
averages around $34,000 a night, although during the peak summer season
will cost as much as $45,000. Located in the hotel tower, the
multi-level Presidential Suite sprawls across 2,500 sq ft and has three
bedrooms, three bathrooms, a private gym, a steam room and a wine
cellar. It is crowned by a rooftop terrace with an outdoor saltwater
swimming pool.
4. Villa La Cupola Suite, Westin Excelsior, Rome — $31,000
per night
Villa La Cupola Suite in Rome’s Westin Excelsior embodies all things
Roman and excessive: a cupola, a Pompeii-style Jacuzzi, frescoes and
stained glass windows detailing allegories of a mythological figure
paired with a modern one, such as Atlas and Television, Hypnosis and
Neurosis, Hermes and Marketing and Hermaphrodite and Fashion. Located on
the fifth and sixth floors, the suite covers 6,099 sq ft and has an
additional 1,808 sq ft of balconies and terraces overlooking Via Veneto.
 Ritz-Carlton |
| The Presidential Suite at Tokyo’s Ritz-Carlton. |
5. The Presidential Suite, Ritz-Carlton Tokyo — $25,000 per
night
The Presidential Suite, on the top floor of the city’s tallest
building, has spectacular views of Mount Fuji and Roppongi Hills, as
well as an expansive vista of Tokyo’s impressive cityscape. It occupies
2,368 sq ft. For refreshments, guests may enjoy the $18,000
Diamonds-Are-Forever Martini, which comes with a one-karat Bulgari
diamond at the bottom.
6. The Bridge Suite, The Atlantis, Bahamas — $22,000 per
night
The 10-room Bridge Suite is actually a bridge spanning the two towers
of the Atlantis Hotel. The 23rd-floor suite is decked with marble
floors, a grand piano and a 22-carat gold chandelier. It was known in
former times as “the Michael Jackson Suite” because of his regular
stays. Prices have come down from $25,000 last year and fees are
negotiable. Nevertheless, the suite is so exclusive the hotel does not
even advertise it.
7. The Imperial Suite, Park Hyatt Vendôme, Paris — $20,000
per night
The Imperial Suite at the Park Hyatt in Paris provides guests with an
“in-suite-spa” concept — with the bathroom/spa comprising a whirlpool
bath, a steam shower room and a massage table. The 2,500 sq ft penthouse
suite has a huge living room, a dining room, a kitchen and a work area.
 Burj Al Arab |
| The Royal Suite at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai. |
8. Royal Suite, Burj Al Arab, Dubai — $19,600 per night
Since it was built in the mid-1990s, the Burj Al Arab has become one
of the world’s most instantly recognizable hotels with its billowing
sail-like structure stretching out on an artificial island into the Gulf
of Arabia. The Royal Suite on the 25th floor has a marble-and-gold
staircase, leopard print carpets, its own private lift and a rotating
four-poster canopy bed.
9. Royal Armleder Suite, Le Richemond, Geneva — $18,900 per
night
The Royal Armleder Suite at the Le Richemond Hotel is named after the
wealthy family who used to own the famous hotel before Rocco Forte
bought it in August 2004. The three-bedroom suite, which stretches over
2,500 sq ft on the seventh floor, has a 1,000 sq ft terrace with
panoramic views of Lake Geneva, a real log fire and floor-to-ceiling
bulletproof windows. Olga Polizzi, Rocco Forte’s sister and well-known
hotel interior designer, designed the suite.
10. The Ritz-Carlton Suite, The Ritz-Carlton, Moscow —
$16,500 per night
To stay at the best suite in Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton would cost around
$16,000 a night — $500 less than last year. Furnished in Russian
imperial style, the 2,370 sq ft suite has views of famous Moscow sites
including the Kremlin and Red Square. The suite comes with that
necessity for the security-conscious Russian billionaire — a panic room
with its own energy and telecommunications facilities.
Research for this survey was compiled during mid-August. Prices are
rate per night including taxes.
From Financial News at http://www.efinancialnews.com
