Gatsby meets Greatest Showman in battle of the brands

What do The Great Gatsby and The Greatest Showman have in common?

Both are represented by Australia’s newest and trendiest luxury city centre hotels.

Brisbane’s Adina Apartment Hotel on George Street evokes the glamour of the Gatsby era in a beautifully restored heritage-listed building completed in 1922 to accommodate the Queensland Government Savings Bank.

The TFE Hotels property offers 220 luxurious rooms and suites, following the addition of another five levels to the historic building.

Its lobby is nestled in the former banking hall, complete with a new restaurant and bar celebrating the building’s 1920s origins with slick double-panelled walls and ornate ceiling roses.

Meanwhile, Perth’s new QT comes with jugglers, staff on stilts, an on-site make-up department and its very own ‘director of chaos’.

[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”27469″ align=”left” padding=”10″]A stay at the hotel, on the corner of Barrack Street and Murray Street, will likely see you greeted at the door by actors in costumes, many of whom have been given specific training at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

“It’s unique and it’s playful and creative,” general manager Jason Cooley told Today Tonight.

“QT is a brand that sort of embraces the quirky side of life.

“You could be walking into the foyer for instance and there’s a juggler or there’s someone on the sidewalk walking on stilts.

“We employ them and we start the training process and then we take them out to WAAPA.”

The former site of the old Cinecentre in Perth CBD has been transformed into an 18-storey luxury hotel with a rooftop bar and 185 rooms boasting industrial-style bathrooms, crushed velvet bed heads, and a black cockatoo-themed exterior – a nod to WA’s famous native wildlife.

Back on the East Coast, the Adina’s 250-seat bar can be found way down in the former bank’s vaults. The ‘Boom Boom Room’ fuses “avant-garde design with an inspired cocktail list to form an opulent basement-level lounge”.

Its impressive interiors are matched by an equally impressive staff list lead by executive chef Jake Nicolson (formerly of Spain’s El Bulli and The Ledbury in London), head chef Jason Margaritis (formerly Spice Temple, Melbourne) and the 2014 Good Food Guide Sommelier of the Year, Penny Grant.

TFE Hotels chairperson Allan Vidor said: “The hotel creates a real point of difference for the Brisbane market with its magnificent sense of history and its wonderful setting, just a few steps from the waterfront and close to the heart of the city.

“This will be a flagship for the Adina brand.”

QT is equally gushing about the brand’s new Perth offering.

“Meticulous modern design meets the industrial glamour of yesteryear across an impressive selection of luxuriously detailed guest rooms,” said a spokesperson.

“Signature QT Gel Beds, dark stone bathrooms, Patsy Payne sculptures and ingenious mini-bars complete this extravagant experience.”