The Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi is one of the most historically significant hotels we’ve ever visited. While the hotel opened in 1901, most of the hotel is much newer. We stayed in the Opera Wing which opened in 1994.
The historic Metropole wing was closed for renovations during our stay and is set to open later in 2023. They’ve blocked the staircase with a picture of the staircase (which is a very Disneyesque move).
This wing of the hotel is home to Le Beaulieu, a high-end French dining room.
The menu highlights contemporary French haute cuisine, offering an innovative chef-driven perspective with a link to traditional French flavors while focusing on seasonality and sophistication. Featuring more than 600 references and over 100 Grand Cru Classés from leading chateaux, this is also a wine connoisseur destination for exceptional wine knowledge and facilities.
The Metropole Wing is also home to several luxury retail shops. You know…the places that only need 1-2 customers a day to stay open.
Just before entering the shops, there was a side hallway that features the history of the hotel. The hotel runs tours several times a day, with a historian, to inform guests about the place the hotel serves in Vietnam’s history.
The highlight of the tour is visiting the hotel’s bomb shelter. Built during the Vietnam War, hotel guests including Joan Baez and Jane Fonda hid in this shelter during bombing raids of Hanoi.
Over the decades, the shelter was forgotten until the hotel went to develop the courtyard. They discovered the shelter and made it safe to visit.
I’d never been in a bomb shelter before, but it was like I expected. Low ceilings and concrete walls.
We could even see the blocked stairs to the hotel which guests used to access the shelter.
While we enjoyed learning about the hotel’s history, we were more interested in the current offerings.
The pool is located between the Opera and Metropole wings. It’s not large but looks nice. We didn’t get a chance to take a dip during our visit.
Adjacent to the pool is the Bamboo Bar. While not a tiki bar, it does have a tropical vibe.
In the courtyard is also Le Club Bar.
While serving as a secondary breakfast location, it’s open from 6 AM to 11 PM and serves as an all-day dining location.
After my hotel tour of the bomb shelter, I spent time here in the afternoon, enjoying a light lunch and a beverage.
The breakfast served here was the same as you can find at the Opera Wing, which has a more efficient room to serve a buffet breakfast. The buffet was on par with the best we had on our trip
Freshly pressed juices and water were available.
The Bircher Muesli was the best I’ve had since our trip to Iceland.
We knew to try the pomelo after having it in Hoi An during our cooking class.
There were several manned cooking stations.
There were several Vietnamese dishes, but we weren’t that adventurous. Although we know it’s considered a staple in some countries, we don’t consider corn on the cob to be a breakfast dish.
There was also a large selection of pastries and the almond croissants were the best I had during our trip.
The breakfast room was elegant, with dark wood floors and white walls. It was hard to believe the room was closed for the remainder of the day.
The breakfast was included with our room rate. There are many ways to get free breakfast at this hotel, which I included in the post about our room.
The history of the hotel is fascinating, and if you’re going to visit I strongly recommend the tour, which includes a visit to the bomb shelter.
Our guide mentioned that the hotel was the site where Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump held the DPRK-USA summit in 2019 and they’ve put up a plaque to commemorate the event.
For the record, that was not why we stayed at this hotel.
Final Thoughts
If we had a choice, we would have liked to stay in the Metropole Wing because Sharon and I have a thing about old hotels. While they may not have all the modern conveniences, you can’t beat the history of staying in a 100+-year-old building.
Our room in the new wing was modern but the hotel gave off an elegant old-money vibe. It’s such a landmark that locals visited to take professional photo shoots outside the hotel.
While I’m not sure if we’d stay at this hotel when visiting Hanoi, it would definitely be somewhere we’d visit if we were in town. The same as when we went to the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans and St. Regis in New York.
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2 comments
Wait, why wouldn’t you stay there? I think I missed something…review seemed otherwise positive.
I wrote in more detail in our first post that the hotel is beautiful, but it’s too fancy for our taste.