Waltzing up to The Lafayette Hotel & Club, the newest splashy project from San Diego’s Consortium Holdings, is like entering a retro, Wes Anderson fever dream. Waltzing is the appropriate word here — although “swanning” works too. It’s that kind of place, one that oozes midcentury, Marilyn Monroe-esque glamour, mixed with wit and modern flair.
Celebrities from Bob Hope to Katherine Hepburn flocked here in the hotel’s 1940s and ’50s heyday. “Tarzan” star and Olympic gold medalist Johnny Weissmuller designed the pool. Harry James entertained in the lounge. But business plummeted when Highway 8 came through, and the hotel eventually went under.
Now, post-renovation, the Lafayette is attracting an entirely new set of fans — San Diegans who come to play, tourists who come to sleep and play, and Esquire magazine travel editors, who named it “Hotel of the Year” when they anointed the best new hotels in North America and Europe this summer.
CH — Consortium Holdings — is the brains behind a slew of wildly creative San Diego eateries, from the tiki-centric False Idol to the stylish Raised by Wolves and seafood-focused Ironside. This is their first hotel project, and they’ve filled the establishment with all their signature moves, from luxe finishes to animal prints. Bejeweled little lamps glow on every surface. Even the tassels have fringe.
The guest rooms are an over-the-top fantasy, with deep red toile wallpaper — with wild animals and other Lafayette motifs in lieu of the usual shepherdesses — as the backdrop for a velvet-draped, four-poster bed. An enormous antique dresser covered in full-size bottles serves the role of “mini bar.”
When we awakened from our Coleridgian dreams of Kubla Khan, we discovered that the pampering even extends to the hotel stationery. There on the desk: hotel letterhead printed with our names.
What makes this such a destination for locals, as well as out-of-towners like us, are the pool — hello, day passes — and this being CH, the restaurants and bars.
Why yes, that is indeed a retro diner just off the lobby, gleaming with chrome and neon and cherry-red banquettes. You can order pancakes, of course, at the Beginner’s Diner, and scrambled eggs. But you can also order dishes like a Latkestrami Benedict ($18), with hollandaise draped over poached eggs, pastrami and latkes.
The dark, atmospheric Quixote boasts a Oaxacan menu, an impressive mezcal and cocktail lineup, tile-topped tables and wood salvaged from an abandoned Mexican church. Sip a Sudden Death ($16) cocktail, made with sotol, elderflower, amaro and absinthe, as you ponder whether to order the Crab Corn Doughnuts ($21) topped with caviar or the Chili Garlic Shrimp Tacos ($18). (Psst, both.)
Then head down to The Gutter, a sleek, clubby bar with a two-lane bowling alley, pool tables and a witty cocktail list — bourbon-based Corner Pocket, anyone? Or head for the Lobby Bar, where throwback cocktails are shaken and stirred under a soaring glass atrium, and a massive Earth is held up by … is that Atlas? Of course it is.
Details: Rooms start at $277. 2223 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego; https://lafayettehotelsd.com/
