Thompson Toronto: Boutique Hotel With Three Restaurants, Event Space

New York-based Thompson Hotels opened its first international property, Thompson Toronto, on Wellington Street West in early June. The 16-storey luxury hotel, designed by Studio Gaia, has 102 guest rooms and 30,000 square feet of dining and event space—including three restaurants, a ballroom, a lobby bar, and a rooftop lounge and patio with an infinity pool.

“We wanted to create an urban playground for Toronto, which we didn’t have up until now," Peter Freed, president of Freed Developments, said in an interview. (Freed co-owns the property, managed by Thompson Hotels, with Tony Cohen of Global Edge Investments. The partners are also building a 310-condominium project called Thompson Residences nearby on King Street West.)

The hotel's restaurant, slated to open in mid-July, is an outpost of New York chef Scott Conant's Scarpetta. The restaurant, which faces onto Wellington Street, will seat 150 inside and 50 on a patio. The hotel also houses a 24-hour diner called the Counter, which seats 105 and is now open. A Japanese restaurant called Wabora will hold 150. “We like to roll out our properties certain elements at a time,” said Stephen Brandman, co-owner of Thompson Hotels. “It’s very normal for us to do a step-by-step process.”

In addition to the restaurants, the hotel has two lounges. The lobby bar holds as many as 80 guests and features a hand-painted, three-dimensional mural of Toronto's skyline—measuring 125 by 12 feet—by Spanish artist Javier Mariscal. A lower-level lounge and bar, called 1812, holds as many as 150.

The rooftop, on the 16th floor, has a patio with an infinity pool and an indoor lounge with a fireplace and bar. The space offers unobstructed 360-degree views. “We wanted to have a lot of glass and connect you to the city as best as possible. In the rooftop bar, restaurant, and pool I feel we’ve done that in an ultimate way, with the connection to the lake, the skyline, and the entire downtown core,” Freed said of the space, which holds as many as 200.

Additional amenities include a 3,170-square foot ballroom dubbed the Wellington Room, which holds 300; a 40-seat screening room; a conference room that holds 30 and features a 60-inch plasma TV; and a third-floor terrace with 3,500 square feet of space overlooking Victoria Memorial Square.

Thompson Hotels has nine locations in the United States, including 60 Thompson in New York and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles.