Category: Events

I’d like to lodge a compliment, please

I spent two weeks liv­ing on the 28th floor of a hotel in Tokyo when I was ten, and ever since then, I have been obsessed with hotels. As you prob­ably know, here at the Wel­ling­tonista, we’re also very fond of free food and drink, so when the Travelodge invited us to for Cock­tails & Canapes, of course we respon­ded enthu­si­ast­ic­ally.

The Travelodge is off Glimer Ter­race, going up and down the Plim­mer Steps. It used to be the Copthorne, but for the past year it’s been part of the (Aus­trali­an) Toga Hos­pit­al­ity. The rooms have all been done up, and then their func­tion areas, and finally Steps Res­taur­ant, so they threw them­selves a shindig to cel­eb­rate.

When we arrived, nav­ig­at­ing a maze of escal­at­ors and lifts up from Lamb­ton Quay, I was moment­ar­ily all atwit­ter with “Wine is NOT a cock­tail, dam­mit!” but then I real­ised that we were drink­ing bub­bly with straw­berry liqueur in it, and that does indeed count, so I retract my tweet. The canapes, mean­while, were deli­cious. Veget­able tem­pura was hot and amaz­ingly crisp, lamb meat­balls super fla­vour­some, the prawns looked good if you like that sort of thing, crostini were plen­ti­ful and the pork belly with apple sauce was a nice idea although it could have been a bit more crackled. And then after speeches, out came dessert canapes – fruit tarts, mini pavlovas and truly excel­lent brownies. It was a great range of food, and there was moun­tains of it, fer­ried around by lovely staff. Based on that, I would have no hes­it­a­tion in recom­mend­ing Steps Res­taur­ant for a func­tion if you are look­ing for a hotel envir­on­ment.