New Delhi: Roseate House, Aerocity

Walking into the warm brown lobby, it’s quite easy to forget that you are in Delhi’s buzzing Aerocity. Soft lighting, a smattering of coffee table books, an old black telephone under the stairs and quotations on pillars. Roseate House has all the comforts that a global traveller is used to. Run by the Bird Group, under the disciplined eye of Ankur Bhatia and his wife Smriti, the hotel is a book in which the guest is the protagonist. So you don’t find floors but chapters. And I found the book, Bathtub by Arjun Puri, in my room and browsed through the six travel stories. Thukral and Tagra have made six artworks for the hotel.

On breaking away from the normal crispy white found in hotel rooms, Bhatia said that it has been scientifically proven that brown calms the mind. There are soft cream bedsheets and brown towels and bathrobes. My room faced the Worldmark shopping mall.

Lunch was at DEL, the multi-cuisine bistro. Interestingly, the dishes from different parts of the world have the code of that city, much like what you see on the flight tickets. Hence DEL means Delhi! What I enjoyed: beetroot and burrata salad and duck confit—fresh and well prepared.

A quick nap and I was on my way to Aheli, the spa, for the signature massage. Jasmine, the spa manager, was a familiar face and she told me that pine oil was the USP. And I was ready for the famed tea from Singapore, TWG, at Roasted. I wish I had brought back some bags of the 1837 Black Tea with me. Kheer, the restaurant for Indian cuisine was getting ready to open its doors for guests, as was Tara, the rooftop dining spot for Japanese food.

After tasting four cocktails and talking about fitness with Deepak Rawat, F&B manager, at the Chidya Ghar bar, I was ready to call it a day.

The hotel has spaces for meetings, a VIP lounge, exclusive Club Privé, a gym and swimming pool. The best part—movie screenings in the evening at Upstage, the theatre for resident guests only.