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A Korean friend recently told me that the Grand Hyatt Seoul’s buffet is a popular spot for wealthy local families to celebrate big occasions. Being from London – a place where buffets are low-rent arenas of gluttony; places to stuff oneself with unidentified deep-fried matter clothed in luminous, sickly sauces – I couldn’t imagine the scene. Now that I have visited, and, in doing so, experienced buffet not just as a dinner service but as a medium of immersive theatre, surrounded by chefs cooking to order, families dressed to the nines and anonymous executives doing business over sea urchins and soft-serve, I understand perfectly.
In fact, the whole hotel, a monolithic building that towers above Itaewon, containing 11 restaurants, two art galleries and a “business lounge”, among other offerings, feels a little like a theatre set. Where most hotels – even the more luxurious ones – are at pains to resemble the dominant trends of the day, this one is happy to play into a distinctly 20th-century vision of what a luxury hotel should be. From the parquet floors and high-hanging oil paintings of the lobby to the incredibly attentive porters to wooden fittings with built-in picture frames in the bedrooms, stepping into this place feels like entering a bygone – but still very much valid – ideal of what hospitality should be.
Why Stay at Grand Hyatt Seoul?
Many hotels are subject to a difficult trade-off between scale and character. At the Grand Hyatt, these two attributes feed into one another. Take a seat in the lobby – whose ceiling is high enough to be almost invisible and where floor-to-ceiling windows deliver one of the best views in the city – and you’ll see what I mean. Watching hundreds of people milling around you, inhabitants of the 600-plus rooms or non-residents on their way to visit one of the hotel’s many attractions, you’ll feel the hotel’s distinct filmic quality. An evening wander around the building will take you to tens of the little worlds contained within this vast building.
What are the rooms like at Grand Hyatt Seoul?
One wall of my suite was taken up by a slightly elevated version of the view from the lobby: past the hotel’s pool and surrounding greenery (a rare sight in central Seoul), over its immediate locale of Itaewon and across the river to Gangnam. From rooms on the other side, you can see the Namsan mountain with its distinctive, spike-like tower. Watching the city’s procession through morning and evening, sun and rain, clarity and mist is without doubt the best thing about the room. It’s the sort of view that you won’t be able to resist taking a new photograph of every time you see it.
The remainder of the room is perfectly serviceable and carries through the midcentury charm of the lobby. It’s clad almost entirely in warm, orangish wood (the sort that might be unforgivable in less luxurious circumstances), which recedes only for mirrors, a television and a suite of traditional-looking monochromatic abstract artworks. The bed is large and comfortable, there are plenty of (also built-in, for the most part) places to sit and the water-dispenser tells you on an LCD screen exactly how many millilitres to expect. But it’s unlikely that you’ll notice much of this, fixed, as your eyes will be, on the window.
What to eat at Grand Hyatt Seoul?
At risk of sounding like a hyperbolic reviewer or noncommittal dinner-planning partner, I offer a sincere three-word answer to this question. Whatever you want.
There are specialist outlets for steak, sushi, French wines and yakitori – and I’m sure that they’re all delicious. But they have no hope of competing with the hotel’s famous terrace buffet, a marvel that is almost as expansive as your bedroom’s view. Tempting though it might be, now isn’t a time for fervour. Before you touch a plate, take a slow walk around the room to consider what you want out of the evening and in what order you want it. Ogle the seafood on its bed of chipped ice; allow yourself to become enveloped in the steam rising from a gaggle of still-sizzling stir fries; perhaps, tip your hat to the friendly chef wrapping duck pancakes to order. Meditate for a second; you have limited capacity, and what’s on offer here feels pretty close to unlimited.
Sushi – also hand-rolled to order – is always a smart option. As is noodle soup, which is infinitely customizable with a coterie of accoutrements punctuating its station. What about one of a variety of meats lined up side by side in cast iron pans, accompanied – per tradition – with a fortifying pile of kimchi? Each of these would be a valid route, but as I revisit my evening on that terrace, I realise that my counsel is probably of limited use. If you’re anything like me, an array as globally tempting as this one will bring to the surface the most chaotic and gluttonous corners of your soul. And if there’s anywhere to indulge that impulse, it’s here. There’s no need to choose between quality and quantity, because the hundreds of dishes on offer here – or at least those of them that I sampled – excel in both.
Stack your plate with pizza, noodles, honeycomb, lobster and whatever else enters your field of vision. Just make sure you finish it with jeonbyeong, a traditional Korean crispy pancake that tastes a bit like a flattened-out ice cream cone. And, if you’re not done by the time the restaurant has closed, you can stop off at JJ Mahoney’s (or, simply, the Moët vending machine) for a nightcap.
What are the facilities like at Grand Hyatt Seoul?
The pool, as you’re reminded by a certificate by the door to it, was recently ranked the second-best hotel pool in South Korea. Indeed, an outdoor pool is a rare luxury in this city and this one is capacious and well-maintained. In the summer months, it also has an accompanying outdoor buffet with a focus on barbecue. Of course it does.
The real gem, though, is the spa. On the floor underneath the hotel’s entrance (but, thanks to its hilltop positioning, not underground) is a network of saunas, steam rooms, showers, plunge pools that matches the scale of the rest of what goes on in the hotel. By far the most exciting part is the small booths where you can perform your ablutions whilst sitting down. Each one has a wooden bowl for water, a table, a mirror, a stone stool and a shower head: the perfect setup for an incredibly civilised start to the day.
What is the service like at Grand Hyatt Seoul?
If you’re used to the more casual style of service offered by boutique hotels, the Hyatt might first strike you as slightly overbearing; from the moment you enter, staff will go out of their way to make sure you don’t have to open a door or carry a bag. Personally, I find this attentiveness in keeping with the charm of the rest of the hotel. The hotel, with its great scale, must employ hundreds of staff. In my experience, all are incredibly effective, polite and friendly.
What’s the area like around Grand Hyatt Seoul?
Itaewon is one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in the city, known for its young, international inhabitants and excellent nightlife scene. The Grand Hyatt stands tall above it, visible from most parts of the district.
There’s also an excellent contemporary art offering on the doorstep. Moments away is the Leeum Museum, an architectural marvel designed by Mario Botta that contains an outstanding collection of contemporary Korean art. Walk in the other direction, away from Gangnam and deeper into Itaewon, and you’ll find some great up-and-coming galleries including P21 and Whistle. A little further out, but still walking distance, are the War Memorial and Namsan Botanical Garden.
Itaewon has all of the art, food and shopping to sustain you for a culturally rich weekend in the city, but the Hyatt is also well-located for transport links to other parts of town and there’s always a taxi waiting outside.
Why should you book a stay at Grand Hyatt Seoul?
The Grand Hyatt Seoul envelops you in its always-buzzing world of wood panelling and classical art; it performs the ideal hotel that you might see in a 90s Christmas movie – and does so incredibly convincingly. Truly, it’s a wonderland. A place where getting lost is easy and advisable. It might turn you against boutique hotels for life, but it’s worth remembering that not every big hotel is this perfect.
Address: 322 Sowol-ro, Yongsan District, Seoul, South Korea
Price: Starting from approximately ₩380,000 per night
Closest transport: Hangangjin Station is a ten-minute walk