Else Kuala Lumpur

We heard it before we saw it. Mr Smith and I traded wide-eyed glances from inside what had become an almost vibrating taxi — the low thrum of drums growing louder with every street corner we passed. A delayed flight out of Langkawi meant we were arriving long after the sun had set on Kuala Lumpur, a city that now belonged to fluorescent food stalls, flickering neon shop signs and the auspicious glow of red paper lanterns. As we pulled up to one of Chinatown’s most frenetic junctions, a crossroads that heaved with some unfolding celebration, a giddy realisation struck: our five-star hotel was in the white-hot eye of a beautiful, revelrous storm.

To preface, this wasn’t your average Sunday night in Chinatown — it was the Petaling Street New Year Celebrations, and we’d arrived just as the Year of the Horse was galloping into view. The pair of us smushed through waves of spectators leading up to a makeshift stage, upon which seven young drummers banged and leapt over wide barrels in stark white tunics and blood-red sashes. Four dancers emerged in a blur of canary yellow and turquoise silk, twirling pom-poms to the bird-like trill of a paixiao pan flute, which seared through unseen speakers. We stopped to drink it in while, all around us, phone cameras flashed and flickered under a canopy of umbrellas, the hot night softened by rain.

And there, right next to the stage, was Else Kuala Lumpur. I spied the hotel’s doorman, outnumbered by the groups who’d taken to viewing tonight's festivities under its 'five-foot way’ — the nickname given to colonial-era colonnades casting shelter and shade in front of buildings across South-East Asia. He managed to open the door just wide enough that we could slip inside, inadvertently creating the closest thing to a ‘Narnia moment’ as I’ve ever experienced — the percussive party behind us instantly replaced by the hermetic seal of cool, high-ceilinged quiet. And just like tourists the world over, straddling state lines to say they were in two places at once, so were we: both here and yet somewhere else, entirely.

Led by co-founders Justin Chen and Javier Perez, Else is one in a wave of creative projects breathing new life into KL’s heritage bones. Originally built in 1932, this iconic art deco corner first belonged to the Lee Rubber Company — a titan of Malaysian industry at the time — before becoming the wartime home of the Japanese secret police and, later, a neighbourhood bookshop. Inside its now suavely sculptural interior, I appear to have absorbed the energy of all three: I’m ready to call Else my office, my personal library, my stage for a highly clandestine art heist. There sure seemed to be enough museum-grade pieces to go around, and even a series of underground passages, discovered by the hotel’s architects during initial construction, to aid my escape.

But for now, it was time to follow the lobby-spanning Omar Khan rug — one of many woollen landscapes designed for the hotel by the legendary local maker — toward the lifts, ascending to a check-in space that could easily double as an appointment-only gallery, should it ever wish to become one. Like the sunken lounge beside it, it’s filled with objets d’art – all Eames silhouettes, tribal masks and boundary-pushing art. Our Sanctuary Suite, meanwhile, is its palate-cleansing twin: a study in mid-century-ish minimalism with parquet floors, statement chairs, rich woods and deep tactility. The busiest this room gets is its balcony view, which peeks down at the fourth-floor infinity pool and soars to the tip of the KL Tower, via all manner of rickety Chinatown rooftops and steely skyscrapers in between.

As for Else’s cool-cat peers (many of which are detailed in a wonderful little in-room zine), our stay would see us visit just about all of them. This includes the Zhongshan Building, the Pocket and REXKL — a former shophouse, industrial wasteland and retro cinema respectively, each reborn into an artisanal hub of speciality matcha, natural skincare, ceramic wares and vinyl. REXKL, the closest to Else, has what might just be the most photographed bookshop in Malaysia. This immersion into the city’s creative class would also see us spend night after night in nearby Wawafish, rattling through its illustrated book of natty wine-based cocktails and small plates.

Back at Else, the ground-floor restaurant Raw and Yellow Fin Horse, a slightly more exclusive-feeling seafood bar on the fourth floor, are both design-led lures for those needing a break from the steam and spice of the street-food scene outside. At the former, we tucked into caramelised grapefruit halves and kaya toast during breakfast, watching as stylish Millennials slipped in and out of its leather-green banquettes for their morning meetings. The latter is all golden warmth, expensive marble and charcoal-cooked prawns, at their best when layered over the garlicky paella.

Still, the old-guard — quite rightly — refuses to be sidelined. Stepping out of Else is to inhale the scent of soy-scorched wok hei and roasting chestnuts drifting from Jalang Petaling, the historic heart of KL's Chinatown — a veritable wonderland of blingy knock-offs and street-side delicacies. It’s here you’ll find Uncle Apek, a Chinatown legend who has been flipping his signature peanut pancakes (apam belik) for nearly five decades. We made ours a sweet chaser following a trip to local institution, Soong Kee Beef Noodle, before exploring the back-alley murals of ‘Little Demon Lane’ (or Kwai Chai Hong) — a nod to the mischievous children and triad runners who once claimed it. 

But here’s the thing — Kuala Lumpur demands retreat. In a land of eye-stinging humidity, even an hour of street-level sweltering can warrant three in the chic shade of your hotel. This is where Else turns into much more just than a place to rest weary heads. For every cacophonous corner of the Central Market, there’s 60-minutes to be had in the hotel’s flotation pod – an embryonic egg in which I performed world-class naps. For every sweat-slicked lap of the botanical garden, there’s an air-conditioned movie marathon in king-size sheets, sipping complimentary sodas and exquisite herbal teas. For every horn-blaring crawl through rush-hour streets, there’s a slow dip in the infinity pool, and juicy chomps of durian in the mustard-yellow cabanas beside it.  

Right up until check-out, I was discovering hidden gardens, private meeting rooms, spot-lit vintage sofas and aerial sculptures — even a secret top floor (sssssh). It was, until my very last look, a palimpsest that welcomed connection and disconnection. And for Chen, Perez and their merry band of Malaysian artists, a feat quite unlike anything Else.