Brazil 15
Why don’t all hotels do this? Turn the inside of elevator cabins into quick exercise venues. But then there are so many features of Grand Hyatt Rio that are definitely worth mentioning. One is the basement gym with a small side studio. It’s life fitness, but there’s plenty of equipment and it works. The charming personal trainer, Ivan, came up and asked if he could help at all. Not too pressing, but proactive. The gym is really used by local lovelies. The guys with them all seem to think it’s obligatory to wear black. The girls prefer to have a uniform of very tight spandex all-in-ones to reveal their curves and especially to show how their muscles are bulging.
Granado Rio de Janeiro ‘soaps and smells’ boutique
Ale Bueno, GM of this gigantic complex, is herself a wisp of a thing (some would find it odd that she’s married to a chef, and one who also loves cooking at home, particularly since she’s strictly veggie). She’s a Hyatt junkie through and through – her long-time mentor is Myles McGourty. But why, she asks herself, why can’t she find the next generation of cariocas to follow in her footsteps? The youth of the Barra area of Rio just do not want to work. The state looks after them too well. This must sound so familiar to Brits, but at least the Barra slackers have stupendous surf to plunge into – just like all ages in French Polynesia (when their waves are right, they’re off, knowing they have plenty of nuclear-testing compensation from the French Government in the bank).
Another outstanding feature of Grand Hyatt Rio de Janeiro is the seventh floor rooftop Grand Club Lounge, which manages without a reception agent, a bit of a handicap when you want to check in or check out in a hurry. 7am-10pm. The lounge is not notably decorated. There are light wood tables and chairs on wood floors. It springs to activity at breakfast, and also at the cocktail hour, when the foods are so copious that certainly those with young kids make dinner out of it. And it looked as though several other people were doing the same. Breakfast, similarly, is more than most people would expect. And the buffet, which includes scrambled egg, is complemented by eggs to order any way, even eggs Benedict, great papaya and mango, and the delicious little cheese breads that are a cross between bread and popover, and such a feature of Brazil. Pale blue ceramics (Corona, from Colombia), with chunky coffee mugs, really look good on soft green Chilewich tablemats – everything’s so colour-coordinated, to go with the blue sky outside and the sea below.
If you want bold colours, however, head down to the lowest-level Granado Rio de Janeiro ‘soaps and smells’ boutique. It’s fabulous – and what a story. Granado, started 1870 by Portuguese immigrant José Antônio Coxito Granado, was official pharmacy of the Brazilian imperial family under Dom Pedro II. The Granado descendants sold to a Brit, Christopher Freeman, in 1994 – Spanish giant Puig has since acquired 35% – but it is Williams and his marketing-savvy daughter Sissi who are responsible for the sensational appeal and packaging of the products.
