By Laura Rancie.
I’d like to introduce you to a small series of charming and stylish hotels, curated carefully to be collectively known as the Handwritten Collection. It was to my delight that I recently spent a couple of weeks at the Handwritten Collection’s Hotel Morris in Sydney’s Haymarket.
Being on assignment for work in nearby Surry Hills I wanted the option to walk to and from the office, but also the convenience of enjoying all that Sydney’s lively food and culture scene offered. Travelling solo this time, I also wanted to feel safe – I knew staying at an Accor-owned brand, I would benefit from their impeccable service and safety measures; something that is important when leaving your spouse and children behind for a few weeks.
Although I had an early arrival time, the hotel was ready to greet me and had my room ready to go. I absolutely loved the location within walking distance of great food, chef-hatted restaurants (there are 143 in Sydney to be exact) and things to see and do.
Want to know my secret of how I navigated to places I knew I'd love? (sshhh don't tell anyone) - I looked up where Messina gelato bars were and knew that if there was one in the area, I would also love the restaurants and boutiques there. From my Surry Hills office, there was a Messina store a few hundred metres away which led me straight to the glorious Crown Street, where I discovered Lode Pies and Pastries for the first time as well as quaint little eateries.
I tested my Messina method the next day in Haymarket and sure enough another Messina store led me straight to dinner heaven at Darling Square with more food options than I could possibly fit in my time away.
The foodie highlight of this trip was FUNDA, a Korean fusion restaurant within easy walking distance of Hotel Morris - to hear what made that dinner so delicious, you can read about it here.
In the quiet sanctuary of my room, I felt like my stay had been personalised just for me. The Italian architectural building Hotel Morris sits within is heritage listed and I absolutely loved the quirkiness of walking in off the street not into a standard lobby but into a bar. Why not combine the two?
Bar Morris is an intimate and indulgent wine bar with a small bar approach to all things liquid. For the satiating hungry souls, the exciting Italian-inspired food menu is fun, dynamic and focuses on fresh and convivial dishes.
My daily morning ritual started with a ride over to Bondi to walk the famed coastal trail alongside cliffs plunging deep into the ocean below. At Mark’s Park, around the bend from Icebergs, you can marvel at 2000-year-old traditional Aboriginal rock carvings, before heading on to Tamarama and Bronte Beach.
One morning I even did it in reverse and found the stunning Gordons Bay in Coogee. Sydneysiders are very lucky to have access to pristine coves, inlets and trails. Though I was quite gut-wrenched to find I showed up too early to devour the much talked about bagels from Lox in a Box on Glenayre Avenue in North Bondi, I was comforted by the smells wafting my direction from artisan The Bakery on Glenayr on the other corner where I happily ordered a ham and gruyere croissant, still warm and fresh out of the oven. okay ... and maybe also a quiche. But I promist that's all!
Raised in Melbourne, it is quite hard for me to say what I am about to say but it could be possible that Sydney’s food scene is equal to, if not, better than what I had previously known in Melbourne.
Each distinctive in their own right, Handwritten Collection hotels intimately reflect the warmth and personality of the people who look after them from the Alpes in France to the lakes of Italy, the pink bustling city of Toulouse and even the old town of Tallinn in Estonia.
However, it is all around the globe and back to Australia that I first had the pleasure of being a guest at the Handwritten Collection in Sydney (although to be fair there is also one located in Perth).
My short getaway to Sydney proved foodful and I genuinely loved the location of my accommodation. Maybe next time, you can recommend more places for my visit?
