ABode Chester

Class: First

Style: Modern design

Rooms: 85

Nowhere has the boutique hotel movement put down deeper roots than in the United Kingdom. Chic modern hospitality isn’t confined just to London, or Manchester, or Edinburgh — here even the secondary markets (and the secondary secondary markets) have stylish boutique hotels that would be the envy of some national capitals. This is a country where outfits like the ABode Chester thrive.

It’s a swanky modern glass-fronted building, with eighty-five very attractive wood-floored residential-style rooms and suites. The look is contemporary and urbane, and the details are quite up to standards — no corners are cut, with wall-mounted LCD televisions, efficient modern wet rooms and oversized enamel baths. Businesspeople will find the ABode to be more than suitable, and luxury refugees from the capital, equally, will find they’ve made very little in the way of compromise.

The gym is the equal of those in many a bigger hotel. But the ace in the hole is Michael Caines. The Devon-born chef has an outpost on the top floor, with a commanding view over Chester, the surrounding countryside, and the Welsh border. Here, needless to say, the old clichés about British cooking are laid to rest for good — just another measure of how much British hospitality has changed.