Forty Four Floors of Art Deco: Sofitel Abu Dhabi Corniche

Two hundred and eighty rooms and suites, forty four floors, and a stepped Art Deco silhouette completed in 2012 inside the Capital Plaza complex. Sofitel Abu Dhabi Corniche was conceived as a tower before it was conceived as a hotel, and the arithmetic of that decision runs through the whole property. The higher you sleep, the more Gulf you get.

The building is one of a small number in the capital with an identifiable architectural style. The setbacks and vertical banding are Art Deco rather than the glass curtain wall that covers most of Abu Dhabi’s commercial towers, and the result from Corniche Road East is a hotel you can pick out of a skyline rather than one that dissolves into it.

Where the tower stands

The address is Corniche Road East, at the eastern end of the promenade and closer to the commercial and government districts than the palace hotels strung along the western shore. The Corniche itself is three minutes on foot. Abu Dhabi Mall is around twenty minutes walking, and the airport roughly half an hour by car.

This is a city hotel rather than a beach resort, and Sofitel is direct about the distinction. A complimentary shuttle runs to the beach and to the attractions, which closes the gap without pretending the gap does not exist.

Parking runs to 300 spaces across outdoor bays and valet. In this stretch of the capital that is a genuine convenience rather than a line on a fact sheet.

Nine categories, one lift

Room categories run to nine. Superior rooms take a king or two single beds and look across the city. Luxury rooms take the same bed configurations and face the sea. Above them sit the Luxury Room Club Sofitel categories, then three tiers of suite: Prestige, Opera and Imperial.

Everything from Club Sofitel upward carries access to Club Millésime, the hotel’s private lounge, which runs breakfast, refreshments through the day and an evening service. Interiors are contemporary and individually finished rather than repeated identically floor by floor.

Height is what makes the sea view categories worth the difference in rate. At forty four storeys the water reads as a full horizon rather than a slice between neighbouring buildings.

The French register

Accor’s luxury brand carries a specific national character, and this property holds it more consistently than most Sofitels outside France. The lobby lounge is Le Café. The club floor is Club Millésime. The bakery counter is the French Bakery Corner. None of that is decorative labelling.

Corniche Restaurant handles the international menu with Arabic specialities across three live cooking stations, and it is the busiest room in the building at breakfast. Silk and Spice covers Thai cooking. Grills at Chill’O sits on the eighth floor and works a Mediterranean menu beside the water. Two cafes and a grocery sit alongside the restaurants and bars.

Jazz and Fizz

Jazz and Fizz Bar is the room that gives the hotel its following. Live music rather than a playlist, a long cocktail list, and an audience drawn from Abu Dhabi residents as much as from guests upstairs. Hotel bars in the capital open and close with some regularity. This one has held its crowd for years.

> Jazz and Fizz is the reason to book here rather than at any of the neighbouring towers. It is a proper bar, played live, in a city that does not have many.

Water, hammam and the fitness floor

Two outdoor pools serve the hotel, with a children’s pool alongside, loungers, umbrellas, a hot tub and a poolside bar. Full pool service runs through the day.

Sofitel Spa provides separate hammams and jacuzzis for women and for men, with sauna and steam rooms and a treatment menu built around aromatherapy and deep tissue work. Sofitel FITNESS is fitted with Technogym equipment and carries its own steam room and sauna. Both are open to residents.

The Crystal Ballroom

The meeting provision is substantial and is one of the clearer arguments for booking here. Twelve event spaces total roughly 2,600 square metres, or 28,000 square feet, and take groups from ten people to a thousand.

The Crystal Ballroom is the centrepiece at 780 square metres with a six metre ceiling, seating up to 750 in theatre style. Smaller boardrooms run from ten seats to forty two. A conference centre and a business centre sit within Capital Plaza alongside, and valet parking is complimentary.

Families, and how it reads against its neighbours

Children stay free and connecting rooms are widely available, with the children’s pool and the shuttle covering the days when the beach matters more than the boardroom. It suits a family visiting the city rather than one after a beach week.

Within this stretch of the island the choice is reasonably clear. Le Royal Meridien holds 278 rooms across twenty five floors in the older downtown and leads with a revolving lounge and a pub at pavement level. Sofitel holds 280 across forty four floors at the eastern end of the Corniche and leads with a ballroom, a hammam and a jazz bar. Both are five star city hotels on the main island. They are not the same stay.

Who it suits

A tower with a point of view, a bar worth crossing the city for, and 2,600 square metres of event space for anyone arriving with a delegation behind them. Take a Luxury sea view room as high as the floor plan allows, walk the Corniche before breakfast, and give an evening to Jazz and Fizz.

Contact

HOTEL: Sofitel Abu Dhabi Corniche
ADDRESS: Capital Plaza Complex, Corniche Road East, Al Danah E9 01, Abu Dhabi
TELEPHONE: +971 2 813 7777
EMAIL: H7507@SOFITEL.COM
WEBSITE: https://all.accor.com/hotel/6597/index.en.shtml
AREA: Corniche / Al Danah