Life.Culture.Discovery.

Hong Kong’s Kimpton hotel and former Mariners’ Club rise from the ashes

The opening of the Tsim Sha Tsui venue is just the next chapter in a surprising, sea-bound story going back 164 years

Reading Time:6 minutes

The Kimpton Tsim Sha Tsui’s rooftop swimming pool. Photo: courtesy Kimpton Hong Kong

Published: 3:15pm, 12 Oct 2025Updated: 12:17pm, 13 Oct 2025

One cold March evening two years ago, Hongkongers were witness to an unscheduled spectacle as an inferno tore across the nearly complete, then 42-storey shell of the Kimpton Tsim Sha Tsui Hong Kong. Flaming tufts of scaffolding nets were sent airborne, blowing across the rooftops of the dense urban core, threatening to ignite fires at the nearby Sheraton and Hermes House, as the night sky lit up with a glow that could be seen from far and wide.

Some nine hours later, firefighters had put out the blaze with no lives lost, despite the inferno being rated a No 4 alarm on a one-to-five scale. The insurance payout, up to a staggering HK$500 million to the building’s developer, Empire Group, was potentially the largest in the city’s history.

It was by all measures a memorable introduction to the Kimpton brand, an American hotel chain under the InterContinental Hotels Group that, despite operating regional locations in Shanghai, Suzhou, Taipei and Tokyo, had limited brand awareness in Hong Kong.

During construction in March 2023, a blaze devastated the partially built Kimpton Tsim Sha Tsui development. Photo: Edmond So

“The fire is the first thing anyone asks me about,” says a slightly exasperated Leo Verceles-Zara, the Kimpton Tsim Sha Tsui’s director of marketing and communications, as he leads me on a tour of the shiny new premises. “But there’s a Chinese saying: wherever a fire burns, fortune comes.”

Walking into the building, tucked into a quiet corner of Middle Road, just off Nathan Road, certainly drives home this impression. Guests are spirited away from a gleaming lobby to the reception on the 15th floor, where a panoramic view of Victoria Harbour welcomes weary travellers.

And the Kimpton offers much to entertain them, with 495 rooms, all harbour-facing, some with bedside bathtubs-cum-plunge pools. There are a total of five food and drink outlets, including cafe-lounge Birdsong, all-day restaurant Hillside, the soon-to-open southwestern Chinese bistro led by chef Vicky Lau of Tate Dining Room alongside hospitality group Leading Nation, and a ’grammable rooftop pool bar, Swim Club, on the 50th floor, complete with a Baccarat-adorned speakeasy hidden behind a false vending machine. A Hyrox-affiliated, state-of-the-art gym and a spa by Banyan Tree, to open in 2026, round out this year’s most talked-about hotel opening and the largest property in Kimpton’s global portfolio.

The exterior of the new building housing the Kimpton and The Mariners. Photo: Jocelyn Tam

“We try to provide a want-for-nothing experience by anticipating guests’ needs and finding out what they are here in town for,” says the hotel group’s veteran general manager Mike Robinson, who has worked at 10 Kimpton properties from Washington to Amsterdam over the past 18 years. “We have a tagline: ‘Ridiculously personal experiences’.” What that looks like in practice, he says, is building “heartfelt connections” between staff for a kind of internal culture that radiates outward.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x