The Travel Critic

I’m starting to develop a worrying affection for the Moxy brand.

Worrying because, on paper, it ought to annoy me. It’s a hotel concept apparently devised by a committee of people who own trainers costing more than my first car. There’s the inevitable industrial-chic aesthetic, the communal tables, the mood lighting, the sense that someone somewhere once used the phrase “vibrant social hub” without irony.

And yet.

The Moxy in Barcelona has got it absolutely spot on.

From the moment you walk in, the lounge-bar-reception hybrid, a configuration that normally fills me with dread, actually works. It’s welcoming rather than performative, lively without being exhausting. People seem to be enjoying themselves rather than fulfilling a brand brief.

The rooms are equally sensible. Comfortable beds, clever use of space, decent lighting and, crucially, a shower that understands its purpose in life: to deliver hot water with enthusiasm. No experimental plumbing. No drizzle masquerading as wellness.

In fact, the whole place hovers tantalisingly close to luxury. Give me a Nespresso machine in the room and a small spa downstairs and I’d struggle to distinguish it from hotels charging substantially more while taking themselves considerably more seriously.

And that’s the trick. Moxy knows exactly what it is. It doesn’t pretend to be a grand hotel. It doesn’t lecture you about authenticity. It simply delivers comfort, style and competence at a price point where most competitors are still trying to work out which direction the pillows should face.

The breakfast is good too. Not “hotel breakfast good”, which is often code for edible, but genuinely good. Enough choice, enough quality and enough coffee to restore faith in humanity.

The location is spot on, putting the best bits of Barcelona within easy reach, and the staff are excellent: friendly, efficient and seemingly happy to be there, which remains one of the hospitality industry’s rarest achievements.

Honestly, I can’t knock it.

The Moxy formula turns out to be rather brilliant: cool without trying too hard, comfortable without being dull and stylish without demanding admiration for its own stylishness.

I arrived expecting a perfectly adequate chain hotel and left wondering whether Moxy might be one of the smartest hotel brands around right now. Which, frankly, is not a sentence I ever expected to write.