A millennial Take on the St Regis Osaka during X'mas

At end of 2018, I visit Osaka/Kyoto region for a visit to see a friend and a potential date. I normally stay at the Westin Osaka when I visit Osaka, but decided to try out the St Regis Osaka this X'mas holiday during their peak time.

I have an Ambassador and Marriott Five Star (?) / Platinum Elite Premier status. This stay is a total point redemption. I also submitted the SUITE NIGHT AWARDS request in hope I can jump the line for upgrades to potential suites. I also emailed the generic ambassador emails in request upgrade of my room two weeks before arrival and again one week in arrival. I even indicated the ambassadors to contact the hotel to let hotel know this is my first stay in this hotel and I will be doing a review on flyertalk. First impression is important and that is a major factor if I would move away from Westin Osaka to the St Regis.

Result: The Suite Night Awards did not clear. However, I was upgraded to a bigger room upon check in in one of the highest floors. I trust the hotel being honest as the floor map does show my room being relatively bigger than other rooms.

Check in is not on the ground floor. Similar to some fancy hotel, you need to go to an upper floor 12th floor to check in. Staff will come to you to check in and if you check in during afternoon tea time, there will be staff deliver some small cakes for you to try while you wait for check in.

As I check in the weekend before X'mas, there is a feeling of X'mas with a Chirstmas tree. It didn't have the smell of a living tree, so it might be plastic (somewhat cultrual "sacrilege" in coastal North America)...

There is a small man-made garden at the lobby with full illumination (X'mas lights). People normally smoke there and you can feel the winter breeze and a oasis of zen from the busy streets downstairs in Osaka.

This is the first time I stayed in a St Regis in Japan. I heard about the legendary Butler Service of St Regis ( a supposively competitive advantagious feature). So I am putting the butler to work.

1) Two weeks before arrival, I asked the butler to find me some of their best resturant in Kyoto that can represent their food culture. I need a table for two - one of the my guest is Japanese. And I am dining in Kyoto on X'mas Eve (one of their busiest days). Only dietary restrictions are that i dislike lots of raw fish (no sashimi) and the girl is lactose sensitive (common for east asians)

Result: Butler found 3 resturants in Kyoto. All of them are Michelin 1 or 2 star resturants. Two of them are traditional Kyoto famous multi-dish, multi course meal called kaiseki-ryouri (懐石料理). The third one is a non-sense resturant of French cusine. So you know the physcology game that I am suppose to choose the first on the list. So I replied back (within 12 hours of getting Butler email) that I entrust the hotel butler to have my best interest and I select the first. Then comes the kicker... it was full and so was the second one. In other words, the Bulter searched for the best resturants but didn't determine there was room.

The hotel Butlers (staff) did a secondary search. Now all 3 were  kaiseki-ryouri (懐石料理) in the Gion district of Kyoto (ie the Geisha district). All 3 were again Michelin 1 or 2 star resturants. This time, I picked again and there was room and it was successful. 

On a side note to those trying fancy resturants, I found there is a common cultural method of not showing you the menu and request you to Omakase (ie I entrust you with my food). In Kyoto, it's literally I entrusted my life on the chief. I didn't know what really I was eating because he explained it in Japanese. I ate the two famous Osaka region delicacy without knowing it. One is called "Fugu" - the extremly poisionus Pufferfish (and will kill you if the chief cut it incorrectly). The other one is called "fugu shirako" - it looks like a poached egg with white cream like Alfredo sauce (without the cheese taste) and it tasted good.... until I found out few days later what I ate was the poisionus Pufferfish's sperm sac! I am still recovering from the butt of jokes at work.

2) I asked the Butler to find me places to get a hair cut on the day I land. I requested this 1 week before arrival.

Result: The Butler (staff) found three salons/Barber shops. I chose the one closest to the hotel and asked hotel to book an appointment. Again, the hotel staff replies back that the Barber shop do not take reservations and is walk in only. Only after my reply did they call up all three barbershops the hotel recommended to see if they take appointments.

So again, they did half the work. They did find barber shops except didn't find out if they take reservations or if it is full. I did do the walk in hair-cut because I had the time on day or arrival. Perhaps because I was spoiled at Westin Tokyo and had higher levels of customer anticipation and service so this hair cut request felt adequet but not in the level of "wow".

3) When I arrive, I have a beloved coat bought a two years ago from Takeo Kikuchi (Japanese brand). The coat was design and made in Japan. One of the buttons is falling off. The way of sewing these buttons looks very complex unlike anything normal and the "standard" mom/pop show sewing in my home city don't really know how to replicate the method. So on the day of check in, I asked the Butler (Dhruba) assigned to me that this is an important coat and a complex sewing seems culturally Japanese. See if they can find some sewing master to replicate the sewing button method before I check out after X'mas. Don't do a simple sewing job. Charge the fees to my room if needed - just get it done.

Result: This is an impressive one. I gave the coat at noon. They sent it off and it was returned to me at night and sure enough the sewing was successfully replicated. I give full credit for Dhruba for successful competion of the work.

Overall Assessment:

When it comes to resturant reservation and hair cut apppointments, the Butler service isn't any superior to any normal hotel concerge. There isn't any extra mile I felt they have done. The Westin Tokyo and the Prince Gallery Tokyo Kioicho have equally good and sometimes better concerge services. The Westin Tokyo had even better cancellation policy on reservations - ie I was able to make a same day resturant cancellation without penalty while St Regis Osaka, I had to sign a form saying I have to pay the full meal cost even if I cancel.

The Butler did pull through during my stay on my coat repair so that was the highight. Among 3 requests, 1 was exceeding expectations and the other two was average. So overall, it is above average but not "wow".

I was given the bigger room on one of the highest foors. I am quite satisfy with the room size and what I can see.

A X'mas choclate pastry awaits me in the room. I also get 3000yen of free food from the mini-bar per day. I don't think I use all the credits but I did enjoy the cans of nuts and my club soda.

The view is the city. Given that it is not next to harbor, I can't expect it would have an epic view like Sheraton Hong Kong, so I am pretty satisfied with my room.

Platinum members can have free breakfast at the hotel Italian Resturant La Veduta. The resturant is trying to be very upscale/fancy so that also means turning breakfast items like eggs omlette to something of an unhealthy overkill. It's not bad per se, it's just very dinner like for a first meal.

Guests can order a single "main course" item and then head off to the buffet. The buffet selection isn't as grand as the Westin Tokyo or the Sheraton Yokohama. However, the main cheif is working the breakfast round and doing the cooking - I assume the white guy is the main cheif because he is speaking sort of English with Italian accent and commanding the Japanese chiefs around. So you get some high level breakfast main course that is unavailable in other hotels.

If you look at the menu (picture), you somehow get Truffles with egg or foie gras (not a fan of duck liver) with steak. That sounds not too breakfasty doesn't it. But it sure sounds expensive luxerious.

Overall, a strong showing on the breakfast menu (the highlight) and the good but not spectacular offering on the buffet table.

I think the strongest thing going for the hotel is the location.

The St Regis Osaka is on top of a subway station called Hommachi (本町). So you just have to go around the building, down the steps and you're in the station. I can say this hotel is the closest of train/subway stations I ever been in Asia.

This Hommachi subway station can take you to Osaka train station (for bullet train Shinkansen) or the Nanba train station ( for express train to airport) within 10 minutes. It was fast, it was convenient and this is the strongest competitive advantage of this hotel.

Another amazing thing is this hotel is located at the end of a covered walkway that goes from the hotel straight to Nanba (the tourist area with the famous bridge). It takes 30 mintues to walk and both sides of the covered walkway is full of stores and food areas. So wind and rain won't affect the walk. At the end of that covered walkway is the Nanba station and department stores like Takashimaya.

Another amazing thing was if you shop in Takashimaya, as I did for souveniers and work clothes, the department store will deliver your purcahses to St Regis Osaka. They only have a handful of luxurious hotels they deliver to and St Regis Osaka was one of them. It was a god sent because I am low on time and I had two full bags of food/clothing and still have sights I want to see in the surriounding area. So the departmnet store kept my goods and delivery it to hotel ( and then hotel staff left it in my room) was the best shopping experience I had in Japan.

All St Regis has "the Bar" and I guess originally you're suppose to order "the Bloody Mary" that originated from New York. However, I have "the Asian Flush" so that excludes me of drinking alcohol without immediate hang over.

So a day before X'mas eve, I sat outside "the bar" in the lobby and pleasent live piano music start playing and someone was singing. You would expect X'mas carols for the season or some warm fussy songs due to the time of the year.

The song being sung was Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven. The melody was appropirate but it was a sad song of witnessing the death of a child. Juxtaposition this with supposively celebration of birth of Jesus or another coming of Santa Claus (I have been a good boy!), it did felt funny out of place.

The room rate is expensive. The hotel is very convenient because of its location on top of a train station.

When it comes to resturant reservations or appointment bookings, Butler service is good but I have experienced "very good" and even "amazing" in a non-St Regis brand of hotel concege before. So butler service performance on this front is not there. The Butler did shine through was once I checked in and requested a repair on my coat. The request I consdier was specific and somewhat complex and the delivery time frame exceeded my expectations so my butler Dhruba did a excellent job.

I did not use Butler to do anything gimmicky like prepare my tea or make coffee. I think tasks that are serious, and complex probably shows if butler is up to stuff.