Review of Merchant's House Hotel, by Vijai Maheshwari

While Estonia, Skype’s headquarters, takes pride in its hi-tech infrastructure, Tallinn’s Merchant’s House Hotel, just steps away from the town’s magnificent Old Town Square, prefers to celebrate the city’s medieval grandeur. Comprising two three-story buildings from the 14th and 16th century, when the city was part of the Hanseatic League (which stretched from Lubeck in Germany to Latvia’s capital Riga), the swank boutique hotel updates the cosy, Alice-in-Wonderland feel of a wealthy merchant’s home for the 21st century.

The owners have stayed true to the building’s past by keeping its rabbit-hole corridors, beamed wooden ceilings with painted frescoes and rough-hewn stone fireplaces. However, the chic Ice Bar behind the lobby with its shot glasses made from ice, high-end Italian restaurant in the basement, high-speed wireless internet, and modern sauna/spa in the basement lend it that Nordic vibe that most upscale hotels in the Baltics aspire towards.

Tallinn’s hipsters flock to the hotel’s gorgeous private courtyard during the summer months for its famous roast beef salads and impressive wine menu. While May’s still a bit chilly for open-air gustations, the vaulted steakhouse restaurant in the basement – whose hearty breakfasts are a perfect hangover antidote after a hard night partying in Tallinn’s wicked Old Town – has a special aura for those familiar with Estonia in the early 90s. It was once home to the city’s first post-Soviet nightclub, Eeslitall, whose James Brown cover bands, dollar vodka-tonics and madcap characters captured the spirit of a city in transition. Though Merchant’s Hotel projects a quieter, more sophisticated energy these days, the naughty portraits of Baltic barons that adorn its walls hint that things were no different during its gilded Hanseatic Age.

Merchant House’s glamorous bi-level Presidential Suite, which boasts the building’s original white-framed windows and whose walls date back to the 14th century, is a luxurious glimpse into the building’s past. Otherwise, the spacious rooms and suites also make a small nod to the hotel’s colourful history with their bordello-red walls, that serve to highlight the white wooden windows, furniture and bathtub – that’s incongruously planted in the centre of the room.

While disorienting at first, it’s a guilty pleasure to have a bath in the wide open space of the room, as Baltic barons must have done when they had maidservants helping them with their morning ablutions. Red walls apart, the spacious suites with their beamed ceilings, wide, white beds, Baltic linen sheets and enclosed lighting, have a soothing feel that’s in sync with the Scandinavian calm of Estonia’s capital.

The friendly, multi-lingual hotel staff compliment the hotel’s good vibrations, always on hand with helpful tips on exploring the magical town, and thoughtful to a fault. I left a treasured book in the room when checking out, and was relieved to discover that it had been lovingly stored in the hotel’s intimate library, when I returned breathless the next day to recover it.

It’s that consideration for guests, and attention to detail that separates the Merchant’s House Hotel from the many other ‘design’ hotels that have sprung up in this vibrant city since the collapse of Communism twenty years ago.

Inspired? Read Vijai's Tallinn Travel Story in our travel writing section