Family get-together at Malmaison Aberdeen hits the suite spot

We are in Aberdeen for a family get-together and staying at the city’s Malmaison Hotel.

The hotel is in a former granite mansion in Queen Street, one of Aberdeen’s most-elegant addresses, an easy walk into the city centre and close to a stop for the new hop-on-hop-off bus.

Our room is one of their Signature Suites – the biggest and best of this hotel’s rooms – and it is perfect for the occasion.

For a start, there’s a balcony. A proper south-facing balcony (a terrace, really) with an outdoor couch and armchairs. There is just enough warmth left in the late-afternoon April sun to sit out and catch up with our son, a student at Aberdeen University, who is joining my wife and I, and our daughter, for dinner.

The living room inside the Signature Suite.

Our suite is divided into two by a slatted wooden partition. On one side is the sleeping area, with a super king size sleigh bed, five-door wardrobe, minibar, free WiFi and a wall-mounted television.

On the other is the lounge area, with a large C-shaped sofa (featuring longer cushions at either end for stretching your legs out on) facing another TV, along with a writing desk, Nespresso machine and illuminated vanity mirror. This was a great area for relaxing in after our evening meal, and really demonstrated the benefits of a suite over a traditional hotel room.

The bathroom had his-and-hers sinks and – a first for us – his-and-hers “Monsoon” showers, at either end of the same long cubicle. Then there was the bath – a beautiful free-standing one with a copper outer finish, situated not in the bathroom, but in a corner of the lounge area. It’s a fun touch if there’s just the two you there – but not something you can take a soak in if you are using the suite for entertaining!

Our daughter is in a standard room next door, which has a king-size bed, bath and monsoon shower, and is similarly equipped with free WiFi and a wall-mounted TV.

After getting ready for dinner, we make our way down to the bar, which offers a range of beers, wines and cocktails, and plenty of intimate booths and other nooks and crannies in which to drink them, and then on to the Chez Mal Brasserie.

The à la carte menu is modern British, with a subtle French twist. There are also brunch, afternoon tea, bar food, and Sunday lunch menus. After fried calamari, with chilli, lime and charcoal aioli, I had an excellent ribeye steak, served on the bone, from grass-fed Scottish beef.

My wife had the New York strip steak, my daughter the risotto primavera with spring vegetables and my son the mal burger, with bacon, gruyère and relish. We accompanied it all with a bottle of prosecco.

Other highlights we didn’t try included a 1.1kg T-bone steak, chalk stream trout, harissa-grilled aubergine and a lamb rump navarin, with baby turnips, haricot beans, carrots and marjoram. Prices for starters ranged from £5 to £11.50, and mains from £18.50 to £135 for that T-bone – though most were at the lower end of the scale. The desserts included a salted caramel popcorn sundae, a chocolate molten soufflé and the evening’s special, cranachan cheese cake.

Breakfast the following morning was a continental buffet and choice of freshly made hot courses including eggs benedict, a full cooked breakfast, kippers, and breakfast muffins, all at £23 and £12 for children.

The hotel offers a range of rooms and suites in different sizes and prices, all individually decorated. The recently refurbished Signature Suite starts from £250 per night. At that price, it represents remarkably good value. You could easily pay that much for a night in a one-bedroomed flat of similar size, and you are unlikely get the same quality of fittings, extras such as access to a gym (there was one in the basement – small, but everything was there) or light refreshment facilities.

And perhaps most importantly, you know exactly what you are going to get. As veterans of many holiday-let booking horrors (the building covered in scaffolding and graffiti; the one with the busybody neighbour; the one with the cooker that gave electric shocks) we know all too well the benefit of there being no nasty surprises!