The Travel Critic

Question. What’s better?

A: A decent cup of coffee you have to walk to get.

B: An instant coffee in your room.

The answer, obviously, always has to be A. No one should ever be forced—before breakfast, before consciousness, before hope—to drink instant coffee. It is a moral failing disguised as convenience. Glad we’ve cleared that up.

Now. How does this relate to the YOTEL in Manchester? Well, delightfully, they seem to have asked themselves the same question and come down firmly on the side of civilisation. Instead of the usual hotel-room tea tray—kettle with a cord too short to reach the socket, sachets of beige sadness—they’ve put a proper coffee machine on each floor, right by the lift. You must leave your room. You must move your legs. And in return you get something drinkable. This is how grown-ups should be treated.

And that, really, tells you everything. YOTEL is a hotel that has done the thinking already. The rooms are simple in the right way: stylish without shouting about it, functional without feeling mean. No clutter, no pointless frippery, no cushions whose sole purpose is to be thrown on the floor in irritation. Just enough of everything, exactly where you need it.

It’s calm. It works. The hotel is great.