The Excelsior Hong Kong Totts and Roof Terrace 2019

The Excelsior () was a four-star hotel located at 281 Gloucester Road,

Causeway Bay Causeway Bay is list of buildings, sites and areas in Hong Kong, an area and Victoria Park, Hong Kong, a bay on Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong, straddling the border of the Eastern District, Hong Kong, Eastern and the Wan Chai District, Wan Chai ...

Hong Kong Island Hong Kong Island is an Islands and peninsulas of Hong Kong, island in the southern part of Hong Kong. Known colloquially and on road signs simply as Hong Kong, the island has a population of 1,289,500 and its population density is 16,390/km ...

, in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. It was owned and operated by

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group International Limited (MOHG) is a Hong Kong hotel investment and management group focusing on luxury hotels, resorts, and residences, with a total of 33 properties worldwide, 20 of which are fully or partially ow ...

, a member of the

Jardine Matheson Group Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited (also known as Jardines) is a Hong Kong-based Bermuda-domiciled British multinational conglomerate. It has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and secondary listings on the Singapore Exchange and ...

, and served as the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group's headquarters. The

Noon-day Gun The ''Noonday'' ''Gun'' () is a former naval artillery piece mounted on a small enclosed site near the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter on Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. Owned and operated by Jardine Matheson, the gun is fired every day at noon an ...

is located opposite the hotel. It closed on 31 March 2019 for demolition and replacement by an office tower.

History

The location of the hotel is "Lot No.1", which was the first plot of land sold at auction after Hong Kong became a British Colony in 1841. The hotel was developed on the original ''

godown A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities, to ...

'' of

Jardine Matheson Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited (also known as Jardines) is a Hong Kong-based Bermuda-domiciled British multinational conglomerate. It has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and secondary listings on the Singapore Exchange and ...

and was officially opened on 20 February 1973. The hotel was the first in Hong Kong to have more than 1,000 rooms. In 2015, the company obtained approval to redevelop the property into a commercial building, and it subsequently announced in June 2017 that it would test the market's interest as to a possible sale. No single bidder had met Mandarin's expectations, however, and the sale was withdrawn. The hotel closed on 31 March 2019, for demolition.

Restaurants

The Excelsior had several cafés and restaurants: * Dickens Bar (), a sports bar and restaurant in the basement, "wood-panelled and bristling with memorabilia", that has been described as a traditional British

gastropub A gastropub or gastro pub is a pub that serves gourmet comfort food. The term was coined in the 1990s, though similar brewpubs existed during the 1980s. Etymology The term ''gastropub'' (derived from gastronomy) was coined in 1991, when David E ...

. * EXpresso, a café in the lobby. * Café on the 1st (), a breakfast, lunch and dinner International buffet restaurant on the 1st floor. * Cammino, an Italian restaurant on the 1st floor. * Yee Tung Heen (), a Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant on the 2nd floor. * The Excelsior Grill on the 3rd floor. * ToTT's and Roof Terrace, a bar and restaurant on the 34th floor. Originally called "Talk of the Town", it opened in 1979 as a disco and bar. It was renamed "ToTT's Asian Grill" in 1995. The outdoor terrace opened in 2009.

Cooling system

Like several other buildings along the

Victoria Harbour Victoria Harbour is a natural landform harbour in Hong Kong separating Hong Kong Island in the south from the Kowloon Peninsula to the north. The harbour's deep, sheltered waters and strategic location on South China Sea were instrumental i ...

, the Excelsior Hotel used a

seawater air conditioning Deep water source cooling (DWSC) or deep water air cooling is a form of air cooling for process and comfort space cooling which uses a large body of naturally cold water as a heat sink. It uses water at 4 to 10 degrees Celsius drawn from deep area ...

system. The seawater source for the system originated from the

Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter is a typhoon shelter located in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, between the Hong Kong Island entrance of Cross-Harbour Tunnel on Kellett Island and Island Eastern Corridor. It was the first typhoon shelter in Hong Kong. It is ...

In popular culture

Parts of the 1978 comedy film ''

Revenge of the Pink Panther ''Revenge of the Pink Panther'' is a 1978 comedy film. It is the sixth film in ''The Pink Panther'' comedy film series. Released in 1978, it is the final on-set performance of Peter Sellers in the role of Inspector Jacques Clouseau. It was also ...

'' were set in The Excelsior. The film was also partly edited in the hotel.

References

External links

Hotel website

Photographs of The Excelsior (Hong Kong)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Excelsior, The

Excelsior Excelsior, a Latin comparative word often translated as "ever upward" or "even higher", may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature and poetry * "Excelsior" (Longfellow), an 1841 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * ''Excelsior'' (Macedo ...