Comfort Meets Culture | Novotel Chamiers Road | Chennai

Chennai has always been and always will be a place of cultural significance. It is the very reason that I always gravitate towards it. However, even all the spiritual cloak can’t hide its sheen of the high-end hotel business. From health, to travel to technology to dining, Chennai does not seem to have any limitations if you consider the business boom in the region. Exploiting the full natural beauty, there are more hotels chains here than we care to admit. These infrastructure’s nature-touched spirituality gravitated me towards one of its most famous hotels, and here I am, jotting down my experience for you.

Novotel Hotel is a part of the Accor Group. This particular group is especially noteworthy considering their budgetary versatility stretches from hotels like Novotel and all-luxurious ones like Sofitel. While I have experienced Accor’s international hospitality, I wanted to try how it would fair with the spiritual emphasis of Chennai, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Novotel Hotel opened back in 2017. A mid-range business hotel, I already had some expectations about it. That said, I have stayed in other Accor hotels, so the expectations, although there were still high. With this mindset, I decided to take a break from my daily routine and prepared for my stay at this 110-room hotel along with my family during my trip to Chennai.

The hotel is located near Anna Salai, merely 25 minutes from the airport. From the outside, the hotel looks fairly contemporary, albeit still a bit standard. However, the juxtaposition of the interior design floored me. It was breathtaking. So, before I went to my room, I asked the staffers to guide me throughout the hotel. The first thing I saw was the banquet room, which was quite spacious. In response to my query, the manager informed me that the room could fit an impressive 200 people. After a good walk around the hotel, I was a bit beat and decided to go to my room.

The room came as a surprise, but more about it later! In the hallway I found out that the hotel is pet-friendly. Since I was quite lethargic after my trip here, I decided to head on to their roof-top gym for my daily exercise. This gym basically, kissed nature while making me gleefully sweaty. However I did not last long, considering I was also quite distracted by the rooftop pool overlooking the gym and dived into it to complete my exercise. I was also joined by my family as the pool was just too inviting to resist. I could see the whole city from within the pool, and it turned out that the view was a lot more majestic at night.

There are several attractions even outside the hotel, the Pondy Bazaar, the Mylapore Concert hall and much more. This combined with the fact that there is an amazing dining option present at Novotel, I realised that it might not be just another-“business hotel”.

I stayed for two days at their suite which was quite impressive to say the least. When I arrived here in the evening after a long drive from Bangalore, the inviting bath tub was the perfect re-energiser. However, I truly basked in its beauty of the suite only the next morning. Besides a separate living room, a bedroom on one of the higher floors it also included a work-desk, 2 LED TV’s. Wi-Fi access, a huge area which accommodates a bathtub, separate shower area, walk in closet as well as a Levista espresso machine.  

For dining, I had many options, at their in house restaurant – The Square where we had some of the best selections not only for breakfast but also for lunch and dinner as well. It is not the only Square that is present if you catch my drift. There were just so many options; each more mouthwatering than the next. 

In addition to the buffet, we also tried their ala carte menu for lunch and pleasantly surprised at the different cuisines their Chef is able to cater to. 

There is another “The Square” in Sipcot Chennai branch as well. Their Gourmet Bar showcases some of the best wines and amazing cocktails and I couldn’t resist unwinding here once the sun set. 

An amazing place that is worthy of a revisit and worthier of your money.