Hotel Hit Squad: Inside Eden Locke – "the kind of interior design wet dream Edinburgh home I would love to own"
If the weather was not so relentlessly dreich, I would move to Edinburgh full time. I have drunk my way through 10 consecutive Festivals, carried a flaming torch down The Mound for Hogmanay and studied estate agent windows repeatedly for Georgian apartments in Stockbridge I will never own.
I usually stay at my mother-in-law’s pied-à-terre in the city, but it comes with restrictions – one being I am not allowed to bring my beloved sausage-in-batter supper from Café Piccante inside, lest the aroma do battle with the potpourri, and linger. Sometimes I prefer to stay somewhere more… anonymous.
When I first walked into my studio at the Eden Locke aparthotel on the central strip of Edinburgh’s New Town, I conjured a fantasy of owning it. Here was my ideal summer apartment: 60 seconds from the Book Festival on Charlotte Square (my centre of gravity for most of each July), and styled as I might my own home if I had lavished a budget on white-hot New York interior designers Grzywinski+Pons to furnish it.
I do not think there is a more instantly appealing place, visually at least, to stay in the city. I spent half an hour pontificating about the specific shade of yellow used throughout the rooms. Was it, I wondered, Farrow and Ball “Babouche”? A while ago I commissioned someone to mix an almost identical colour to spray-paint my wardrobe doors at home, to match my custom-made Harris Tweed curtains. It is a Pantone shade of radiant happiness. I relate this with every sense of my own ridiculousness.
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I identified the designers behind Eden Locke instantly, having stayed at one of their earlier hotel projects, Boro in Queens. If I can sum up their look in a word, it is “fresh”. Their New York hotel has graphic tiled walls, industrial grey pillars and the offer of a $50 (£37) early check-in for your obviously vacant room, generating instant loathing. Such is American hospitality.
Eden Locke has a similar visual feel but more bonhomie from the staff – the lobby isn’t exactly comfortable, or heated to a temperature that would make it in any way cosy, but it looks like a fancy stand at the Salone del Mobile furniture fair in Milan.
“This is gorgeous,” I said aloud, gazing around the pale peppermint lobby. Then I realised there was nowhere I wanted to actually be. The wicker chairs are photogenic, not comfy, and the shiny Hay side tables are ravishing little sculptures rather than functional for rounds of drinks.
It is a shame, because the space is trying to double up as a snazzy café and bar – Hyde & Son – with interesting, if saccharine, cocktails, and an attempt at third-wave coffee that is a fair competitor to Artisan Roast and Fortitude nearby. I met a friend here for drinks and we agreed that even the Wetherspoons across the street looked more welcoming.
I did, however, like the layout of my studio (from £75), with a mini-lounge, L-shaped sofa and a super smart kitchenette situated down a few steps from the bedroom. I did not cook, but I have lived for extended periods with infinitely lesser kitchens.
Every Smeg appliance and brass utensil at Eden Locke was a thing of loveliness, even if some of the styling brought on an eye roll. On the kitchen counter: tea from T2, the retail chain trying to do for English Breakfast what Aesop did for hand soap, but with constantly empty shops.
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Tea never needed a makeover. On the coffee table: the recipe book from Death & Co, one of the most annoying bars in New York – always a clipboard, always a wait, always seemingly empty inside. Other in-room annoyances: reading lights controllable only from one side of the bed – guaranteed to exasperate every couple without symbiotic sleeping patterns. Also: an eccentric air-conditioning system that froze me at 18 degrees and suffocated me at 19. Trying, and failing, to open multiple-glazed windows leads to the kind of despair you only appreciate at 4am in the dark. To round it off there was an early morning fire alarm (thankfully false), which deposited guests in every shade of hangover on to George Street, a shamble of bedheads and dressing gowns.
Some of Eden Locke will remain a case of style over function, but a lot of the things I took issue with will, I am sure, be ironed out, leaving the kind of interior design wet dream Edinburgh home I would love to own. Somewhere I could take chips with lashings of vinegar back to, as much as I want.
Rooms from £69. There are four studios with fully accessible bathrooms, but no wheelchair access in the kitchenette. Ramp access to the property is from the garage on Young Street. Mark travelled as a guest of British Airways, which flies to the Scottish capital up to 25 times daily from London (Heathrow, Gatwick and city); £39 one way.
• Read the full expert review: Eden Locke, Edinburgh
