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The best thing about The Glasshouse isn't the postmodernist façade - a Gothic church merged with an adjoining leisure complex, though that's striking enough. Nor is it that each suite is named after a single-malt, decanted inside. And it's certainly not the female nudes on the bedroom walls. No, the hotel's best asset is an extraordinary, two-acre rofftop garden. Planted with juniper, rowan and heather, and topped with a pergola, it has views of the folly on Calton Hill. Thirty of the 65 bedrooms have patios opening onto the garden, so summer drinks are obligatory; some of the others have terraces with views of the Firth of Forth or Calton Hill.
Inside, there's underfloor heating in the bathrooms, and remote-control curtains to play with. The spacious suites have canny slatted-wood dividers that house flip-over flatscreen TVs, which means you can watch from the seating area or your exceedingly comfortable bed. There is no restaurant, although room service does a brisk trade in Champagne and pizza, and a full Scottish breakfast is served in The Observatory room; for a proper sit-down meal, head for Harvey Nichols' Fourth Floor restaurant nearby, where guests get priority booking. With only an honesty bar/lounge as a meeting point, The Glasshouse is not the most gregarious of Scottish hotels. But it is stylish and discreet enough to have hosted both The Darkness and Meryl Streep (though not on the same night).
WHEN TO GO
Hogmanay for fireworks on Calton Hill; summer for fresh air.
ROOM TO BOOK
A garden-facing studio suite.
CONTACT
2 Greenside Place, Edinburgh, EH1 3AA Tel +44 (0)131 525 8200 Fax: +44 (0)131 525 8205; www.theetoncollection.com). Doubles from £230; studio suites £375.
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