Inside the St. Regis Doha

Hotelier’s Louise Oakley checks into the new St. Regis Doha and discovers a premium hotel product managed by a team obsessed with delivering the finest luxury service in the market

Tareq Derbas is a perfectionist, in his own words “obsessed” with the finer details of luxury hotel service. And considering he is at the helm of Doha’s newest luxury hotel, the St. Regis Doha, a project worth more than QR 2 billion (US $54.9 million), I wouldn’t expect anything less.

And nor would Derbas: “In my hotel, there’s no room for mistakes,” he tells me during my visit to the hotel in April, just 10 days after the opening on the first of the month. “We need to be fully committed to guarantee a flawless and bespoke guest experience; and for that, I spend a considerable amount of time inspecting what I expect.

“I believe that the key to the finest hotel service is an obsessive concern to details for those small indications of personal recognition and attention”.

This is a philosophy shared by the hotel’s owner, Omar Hussein Alfardan, one of Qatar’s most experienced and respected businessmen and president of the Alfardan Group. Alfardan owns several of Qatar’s top hotels, including Kempinski Residences & Suites Doha, but through Resorts Development Company he sought to develop “the pinnacle of luxury living” with the Al Gassar Resort in West Bay, of which St. Regis forms the hotel element.

“The market was missing a unique destination with the total offering of the highest standard of quality materials, sufficient space, authentic taste, contemporary look and superlative hospitality service which is the true essence of what the Arab and Islamic world is all about,” observes Alfardan. “And I think all of those components are met in St. Regis Doha at Al Gassar Resort.

“We foresee the hotel to set new standards of luxury service in the region becoming the benchmark for the discerning international traveller. It is the Rolls Royce of the hotel industry and we complement it with other brands we represent,” adds Alfardan.

For Derbas, working with Alfardan gave him the opportunity to implement luxury ideals far above the norm — quite something for a hotelier who was previously hotel manager at Dubai’s Burj Al Arab.

From the outset, the need to create magnificence, elegance and sophistication through an exquisite interior came above all else, with an original plan for rent-generating retail space in the lobby being shelved in favour of a higher ceiling, for example.

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“Our owner understands luxury,” says Derbas. “From the grandeur of the lobby and the selection of signature restaurants, to the choice of hotel furniture, fixtures and equipment, our owner’s great taste of luxury was a source of inspiration and helped us to implement ideas above luxury brand standards.”

Product aside, Derbas’ initial task when he was the first person on site at St. Regis Doha 20 months ago was to recruit his team, a painstaking process.

After all, sponsorship laws prohibited him from recruiting anyone from within Doha, so he was searching for people able to embrace the market and understand the St. Regis legacy, which dates back to the 1890s high society rituals of Astor family matriarch Caroline Astor and the 1904 opening of St. Regis New York by her youngest son, Colonel John Jacob Astor IV.

Derbas said he was looking to identify strong believers in a people culture, able to interact with guests and one another, with an eye for detail, and a luxurious background — and he recalls how his task became easier after Qatar’s winning bid to host the 2022 World Cup was announced in December 2011.

“I interviewed 25-30 candidates for each management position. After the World Cup 2022 announcement, the CVs tripled,” says Derbas.

“Recruitment was an important task of pre-opening activities and I had to get it right the first time. I have hand-picked passionate hoteliers who have a strong belief in people culture,” he adds.

Around 30 of the team come from within the St. Regis stable — including number two Hal Philp, deputy GM, but as a newcomer to the brand himself, Derbas’ next task was to position the hotel and establish how the market would perceive it.

“I checked each and every brand standard against the competition and am confident we offer a premium above all the other hotels,” again quite a statement considering Derbas has also previously held a long career with one of St. Regis’ competitors, Four Seasons.

One of these premiums is the St. Regis signature butler service, a first for the city of Doha. Interestingly, the butler element of the Doha property goes a step further than many other St. Regis hotels.

Rather than being dependent on room type, it is available to every guest for the duration of the stay. Complimentary features include unpacking and packing services; garment pressing of up to two pieces per room per stay; and in-room beverage service upon arrival and every morning.

The highlight, according to Derbas is the E-butler service. Upon check-in, every guest is given a business card with the E-butler email address, the idea being that any request can be emailed to the address and handled within an hour.

The information is received by a central butler service desk and communicated to the relevant departments, before the completed request is communicated to the guest by their personal butler, who was assigned to them upon check-in.

The butler is the only person that connects with the guest, and each butler is assigned nine rooms, although an individual VIP can request a dedicated butler. Senior butler Priscilla Ochoa says the E-butler has several benefits for both guest and the hotel.

“Most of our guests use technology…so it saves them time to just send a request through the E-butler. It is a good advantage for the guest to have everything written down as well so we don’t make any mistakes and we can co-ordinate [their request],” she says.

Ochoa is one of a team of 50 butlers, recruited from all over the world and with a variety of backgrounds, with a nurse and opera singer among the team. Ochoa herself was previously head butler at St. Regis Mexico City and says that butlers need to manage a careful balance between being sociable and being discrete.

“It needs to be somebody that is really outgoing with the guests, they need to be confident and have some charisma to approach the guest and to assist them.

They should be discrete, looking forward to meeting their guests and learning their preferences, so we can focus on providing this personalised service,” Ochoa explains — a perfect description of my butler, Louella Francia Anyaya, or ‘Fran’, who ensured everything about my stay was comfortable and then went over and above as an assistant on our photoshoot, working far later than her usual shift to ensure I had absolutely everything I needed.

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Dining destination
A perfect service delivery from butlers specifically trained to meet guests’ needs is one thing, but at St. Regis, this needs to be a standard across the entire hotel.

Considering another of the property’s highlights is its eclectic food and beverage offer — which includes four third-party restaurants — I was curious about the potential pitfalls these independent restaurants might pose. On this, Derbas is clear: in the rare case of complaints, they go to him.

“Everything comes to me. I ensured this was agreed before anything. St. Regis brand standards are in every outlet,” he asserts, although acknowledging that with 10 outlets and a range of leisure activities, the challenge is “bringing everything together under one umbrella”.

The third-party outlets include Gordon Ramsay — Doha’s first fine dining restaurant — Opal by Gordon Ramsay, Hakkasan and Al Sultan Brahim, and they operate under slightly different partnerships as executive assistant manager i/c food & beverage Dejan Popadic explains.

“Starwood operates with three different systems — one is licences, one is management or lease and the third is franchise. Franchise would not be attractive in this market, particularly because everything has to always be owned by local representation.

With managed or leased — basically we have a third-party operator come in. He pays you a fee for the land he is leasing from you. He manages it exclusively by himself, either with or without your help. In our case, we only have one management contract, which is Hakkasan,” says Popadic.

“Hakkasan doesn’t leave anything up to chance. If you would call it brand arrogance, that would be a very good word, with all the success they have built in the past they have the right to say ‘we know what we’re doing, we’re doing it well and anywhere we go, we’re doing it right’. And they won’t allow a third party, no matter how big or strong that brand is, to come and have the chisel on that concept.”

Working with Gordon Ramsay Holdings is completely different, however, with the two concepts being agreed upon mutually.

“Gordon Ramsay is very diversified in his operations, so he leaves a lot up to the operator. It is a collaboration. We pay them a fee for their expertise and for their brand name — of course, it has value itself and is driving covers into the seats.

And at the end of the day, the brand standards that this restaurant is operating with are a merging between St. Regis and Gordon Ramsay Holdings, but mutually approved,” says Popadic.

“With the exception of Hakkasan, all the other three third-party operators are purely operated by us and we get input from them in order to generate more revenues, as it is in both our interests, so they are feeding with a percentage on the top line, and we are taking the top line and converting it into bottom line, and there is also an incentive for them on the bottom line,” he explains.

Where the approach to all four restaurants is the same, however, is with regard to complaints handling, affirms Popadic.

“So when it comes to complaints or negative feedback or constructive feedback for that manner in any of our third-party operated partnerships, we would be the one addressing it, handling it as if it was our own. Then we would feed back to our third- party operator.

The same is with Hakkasan. If a guest comments about Hakkasan, we are going to treat him as our guest. He is on our premises, afterwards we will address it with the third-party operators.”

Gordon Ramsay and Hakkasan may well be the automatic draws for guests at St. Regis Doha, but once inside the vast property, there are also a host of in-house brands expected to be hugely successful. The one Popadic is most proud of is Astor Grill, which combines French and New York cuisine and offers table theatre and an open kitchen.

He says St. Regis avoided a typical steak house “for the simple fact that there are plenty of those already in the city and as we know, in the Gulf, everything comes from supplier A, B and C and you can only go and jump left and right, so the steak being put on the table in hotel X is the same steak being put on the table in hotel Y.

The only difference is that the chef might have more creative views or better cooking techniques.

“The plate or service style might be a little different, but at the end of the day, it would be very hard to justify charging a premium over anyone else,” comments Popadic. “So the idea was to go into having a more predominantly meat-based restaurant, hence the name Astor Grill. However, we were also looking at the name Astor, with its founding legacy.

“Astor Grill is definitely a brainchild that came purely out of the background work that we as a team here locally on the ground have achieved. And I think if we realise it exactly as much as we visualise it and it works how we want it to work, this can be a fantastic concept that might even have potential to be further developed in other St. Regis properties,” Popadic reveals.

Excited as he is about Astor Grill, what is really important to Popadic, however, is the F&B director’s “bread and butter” — the banqueting function, including an 1850m² ballroom expected to attract huge weddings business.

“Restaurants are for show, banqueting is where the money lies and where the profit is. We have an extraordinary product — the second largest ballroom in the city…and for social functions, this is the ballroom in the city and it will remain the ballroom for a long time to come,” he says.

In St. Regis fashion, the approach to catering huge events is different, not only because of the “very, very limited buffet options”, but because Popadic plans to offer a menu guests can actually order from on the night.

“We’re just taking tradition to the next level of being able to deliver what the guest would like on the plate rather than in chafing dishes. And in giving them a choice of main course for any occasion in the ballroom that seats 1200 guests, where on the night you feel like salmon versus beef, and we make it happen for you – that is St. Regis,” says Popadic.

No pre-ordering for a main course at a 1200-person event would be a nightmare, though surely? Maybe at first, responds Popadic, but “somebody, someday will have to do it”.

“We have pushed the bar with so many of these things – [with our wine list] we have not taken ‘no’ for an answer and now we have the largest and most unique wine list in the country, where 70% of the labels are exclusive imports for our hotel, with two sommeliers in our system, where no other hotel has a sommelier.

“And this is what St. Regis has to stand for; what we believe in. The most important thing is to show persistency when times are tough and to pull through and not to start chiselling on the concept we decided upon in the beginning. It’s the same with the banqueting.

But at the end of the day, it crystallises itself pretty quickly when you are offering a hammour and a beef and you have 1000 people in a ballroom and you know who your target audience is, you are always going to be able to do a 70-30 or 80-20 calculation and those 50 extra portions going left or right are worth it to represent the branding,” explains Popadic.

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Premium product
With every department united in their aim to exceed luxury norms, Derbas is confident that St. Regis Doha will be able to command a premium rate. The hotel is being marketed as “the finest address in Doha” and as a result, once the entire product is open in the next few months, guests can expect it to be the most expensive.

“Our opening offer starts at QR 1900 per night for a superior room including wi-fi access in the room, a 30-minute spa treatment, afternoon tea in Sarab Lounge and a welcome gift from Jazz at Lincoln Centre.

“It will be a slightly higher rate, but guests nowadays are willing to pay a premium for added value,” he says.

The target market is wide, however, with the GCC forming the base but St. Regis actively targeting China, Latin America, US and Europe. Plus, Derbas believes that in recent years, the luxury market has broadened.

“The luxury hotel market used to cater to the top 10%, the niche market, the who’s who of the community. Back then, these were the people that could afford it. But now, there is a need for discovery. For example, I’m just a corporate traveller — but I need someone to save me time, I only want to deal with one person. There is a will to buy from the other 40% of the market. There is a wider demand for the luxury product,” he concludes.

And with that he turns his eagle eye back to the hotel operation, focused on achieving the owner’s vision of creating “the must-see destination for visitors to Qatar and the region”.

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Hotelier's Highlights

Architecture and design
St. Regis Doha was designed by architects Dar Al-Handasah, with the interiors created by a range of top designers: Wilson Associates (lobby, guestrooms and suites, meetings and events space; leisure facilities; Vintage; Jazz Bar Lincoln Centre Doha); Rockwell Group Europe (Astor Grill; Gordon Ramsay fine dining; Opal by Gordon Ramsay); and Woods Bagot of London (Hakkasan).

Rooms and suites
The hotel’s two reflecting towers, each comprising 13 floors, feature 266 rooms and 70 suites, all with views of the Arabian Gulf. As well as 96 Superior Rooms and 155 Grand Deluxe Rooms, the hotel offers a variety of suite options. Hotelier’s favourites are the 110m² John Jacob Astor IV Suites and the slightly smaller Caroline Astor Suites, with free-standing bath tubs and a feminine feel.

Leisure facilities
Spanning 16,000m² of space, the recreational facilities include a fitness centre, an Olympic-size swimming pool, private beach and 10 exclusive sea-view cabanas with private Jacuzzis, as well as children’s facilities.

Remède Spa
Remède Spa features 22 spa treatment rooms with separate facilities for male and female including steam rooms, experience showers and Jacuzzi pools. It offers its own Remède Spa product line, also used for the in-room guest toiletries.

A Dining Destination

Vine – Filled with natural daylight and glamorous seating, Vine is the hotel all-day dining venue.

Astor Grill – In-house creation Astor Grill is a chic retro dining menu that pays tribute to St. Regis’ founding Astor family.

Gordon Ramsay – Offering a different menu every night, this is fine-dining at its best featuring chef de cuisine’s Gilles Bosquet’s signature Michelin-star cuisine, influenced by chef Ramsay’s world-renowned touch.

Opal by Gordon Ramsay – A casual alternative to chef Ramsay’s Michelin-starred fine cuisine, Opal is set to become a relaxed and social dining experience in Qatar.

Vintage Bar – A cigar and wine bar, Vintage features entertainment from a live pianist, elegant furnishings and contemporary chandeliers.

Oyster Bay & Bar – Caribbean inspired, this pool restaurant and bar offers casual dining with views of the Arabian Gulf.

Jazz At Lincoln Centre – With monthly programming led by Jazz at Lincoln Centre in New York, Jazz at Lincoln Centre Doha is the first international export of this famous club.
Sarab Lounge – The venue for St. Regis’ famous afternoon tea offers a selection of 100 teas, two of which are specially created for St. Regis Doha by The Wellness Group (TWG).

Al Sultan Brahim – Known as one of Lebanon’s most famed restaurants, Al Sultan Brahim offers fresh seafood and traditional Lebanese cuisine.

Hakkasan – The modern yet authentic Chinese restaurant brand that has already enjoyed success in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.