Long before it was rebirthed as the Kimpton Margot Sydney, there has always been something about the storied Art Deco site that reminded me of New York-based poet Frank O’Hara’s Meditations in an Emergency.
Incidentally, a meditation in an emergency is precisely how I’d characterise my experience with the hotel’s Night On My Own (NOMO) package.
The concept behind this IHG promo is simple: a single evening escape from all the noise and static of your everyday life – roommates, partners, kids, etc. – for some much-needed self-care in the heart of the bustling city.
Breathing space aside, the package includes low-key pampering starters like champagne in bed and a La Gaia Facemask, along with a complimentary breakfast the following morning, and a pleasantly late checkout time of 4 PM.
Translation: the difference between your regular stay at the Kimpton Margot Sydney is ultimately more philosophical than practical (hence the airy and navel-gazing insights of this review). Though as I discovered firsthand, it was enough to melt the frostiest of scepticisms.
After an emotionally taxing morning with my own family, I checked into my seventh-floor IHG sanctuary at 339 Pitt St to settle in for a proper quiet one. The prospect of doing absolutely nothing felt more and more salacious the closer I got to unlocking the door. I imagine this is what it feels like to cheat on oneself (with yourself).
Keycard tapped, boots kicked off, and provided bathrobe straight on my doughy physique, moments after making myself at home on the plush king-sized bed, there was a knock on my door – the champagne had arrived, precisely as requested, 15 minutes after entering.
Have you really lived if you’ve never lounged in bed like a Roman senator, flute of bubbles in one hand and television remote browsing through HBO Max’s elite catalogue in another? I fear not.
Somewhere between chasing said bubbles with sparkling water and applying that Gaia Facemask during that second episode of Succession, I decided to kick the max-o relax-o up a notch by running the generously proportioned bathtub for a soak. Because this immaculate vibe was not to be wasted at any cost.
Lack of on-site spa facilities be damned. This would do the job.
Once I regained consciousness from my wonderful Saturday afternoon daze, it was time to clean myself up, wander downstairs to the gorgeously appointed Wilmot Bar for as many dirty gin martinis as I could stomach, before hunting for some dinner in the wild, and eventually stumbling back to the seventh floor.
What you come to realise in these moments of solitude is that the nights are long. Far longer than one cares to admit in the absence of the very company your heart yearns for. But at the Kimpton Margot Sydney (much like most IHG hotels), you can assuage all the usual liminal space anxieties.
From the ambient lighting and entirely unconfrontational décor, to that plush king-sized bed, it was an invitation to reclaim ownership of my leisurely pleasures. In this case, start a book that’d been on the to-read list for months – incidentally enough, the Booker Prize-winning Orbital by Samantha Harvey – and turn pages at my own pace, until the hours gently lulled me to sleep.
And what was that complimentary breakfast like?
Truthfully, in the aftermath of the most restful evening/morning of sleep I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying over the past two years, and in defiance of alarm clocks… the breakfast window was missed. Worth it? You betcha. No amount of avo on toast was worth trading for those quality Zs.
With nobody to answer to and no prescriptive deadlines beyond that late 4 PM checkout, however, I did have the rare chance to sink my teeth into a juicy Sunday gym session. That, my dear friends, was equally priceless.
As I check out of my staycation on that perfectly autumnal Sunday, it feels like the gloom of winter has acquiesced – if only for a moment – and I can’t help but think of those closing stanzas from Mayakovsky (perhaps the greatest poem from Frank O’Hara’s Meditations in an Emergency):
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.
The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.
It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.
Perhaps I truly am myself again.
The author stayed as a guest of Kimpton Margot Sydney. And while IHG’s NOMO package is no longer available (at least for the time being), be sure to keep an eye out for them if/when it returns.
