BC Business
With the stylish boutique airline Porter now flying to Toronto, a business trip is at the top of the agenda.
Ace Hotels in chicly renovated heritage buildings have long been favourites of nomadic creative types. The new purpose-built Ace Hotel Toronto is a decidedly grown-up version. Its Camden Street location is perfectly positioned between downtown’s Bay Street and entertainment and tech hubs to the west. Architecture by Shim-Sutcliffe seamlessly incorporates a retro brick exterior into the local ‘hood, with a curvy, funky ’70s-leaning esthetic in the Lobby bar. The compact 14-storey hotel has cozy Alder restaurant on the ground floor, plus three flexible gathering spaces for anything from stretching to brainstorming sessions. Cocktails at Evangeline on the rooftop are an unbeatable way to toast a successful day of business.
In Toronto’s Yorkville, the new W Hotel is a suite stay: it has two Extreme Wow Suites (the equivalent of a presidential), plus Canada’s first W Sound Suite. Located off the Living Room lobby lounge, it’s a spot where podcasters, influencers, musicians and creatives can record their impressions of life in the city. The lively Public School coffee house at street level is the place to start your workday, while Skylight on the roof is the late-night bookend for over-the-top Mediterranean seafood towers with cocktails, spritzes and slushes. With five event spaces and a huge FIT gym, it has everything your team needs to rev and recharge on a business trip.
Slated to open later this year, a hotel inspired by the restaurant Nobu is coming to Hogtown. With just 36 suites and, of course, a Nobu restaurant, the development includes luxury condos as well. Located near the TIFF Bell Lightbox, it’s within walking distance of Toronto’s major sports and entertainment attractions, and is bound to draw luminaries during the annual film festival.
Olga Roberts, the co-founder of B.C. premium bedding company Resthouse, knows about the sleep challenges of travel: she happens to be a former flight attendant and improving lives through quality rest has become her mission.
For inflight, she recommends not only packing an eye mask, ear plugs and warm socks, but also bringing a big scarf or shawl, or a throw-size blanket (like Resthouses’s throw-size versions made with breathable cotton or wool) “that will keep you cool or [you can] layer up for warmth.”
She likes to take a full-size organic wool or latex pillow (like the Resthouse Kakun) that’s hypoallergenic and dust-mite resistant. “Poly fibre-filled hotel pillows do not repel dust mites,” she warns. It can go behind your back for comfort on the plane, with a rolled-up jacket or sweater cradling your head and neck.
Roberts notes that much hotel bedding is also easy-care synthetic or blends, that “often leave you feeling overheated,” she says. Natural and organic materials, like cotton, wool or linen, are temperature regulating. You could even pack your own pillowcase from home to ensure familiar comfort.
If your hotel has a pillow menu, buckwheat is Roberts’s top pick for “breathability, malleability and natural ingredients”— maybe order two if it’s not lofted enough. “My second choice would be a support pillow, as long as it fits my needs,” she says.
The best travel sleep Roberts has had was in Zipolite, Mexico, in a rustic stay right beside the ocean. A supportive mattress contributed, but “truly, it was the sound of the crashing waves and seabirds that brought me to a state of total relaxation. The ultimate experience is when the mind and body can completely give over to rest.”