Siro One Za'abeel

In a city known for its ostentatious displays of wealth, where uber-opulent resorts are 10 a penny, Siro One Za’abeel cleverly sets itself apart by dedicating itself entirely to the ultimate luxury — health. This is the first Siro hotel, but more are planned for Montenegro, Los Cabos and Tokyo.

While most high-end hotels now have a spa or the odd yoga class, Siro One Za’abeel takes wellness to another level. There’s an on-site nutritionist, a macrobiotic room-service menu, complete with 12 different types of milk for your quinoa porridge, and an entire state-of-the-art ‘Fitness Floor’. This hotel has been designed with pro athletes in mind — elite runners in the Dubai marathon stayed here — but there’s still plenty to enjoy if your idea of exercise, especially on holiday, is little more than turning over on your sunlounger.

But first you’ll have to find it. Siro is located in one of Dubai’s newest landmarks, One Za’abeel, which also houses the One&Only hotel’s first ‘vertical resort’ and ‘The Link’ — the world’s longest cantilever. Tracking down the hotel feels a bit like an assault course. We enter via One&Only’s palatial lobby on the ground floor, are then directed up an escalator to some different lifts, where we travel up to Siro’s reception on the 30th floor, and then to another set of lifts to reach our room.

After all that, we need a lie down, and luckily our Premium Double is extremely inviting. The way the curtains open on cue as you open the door is just the first inkling of the many hi-tech touches that make this unlike any other hotel room we've ever stayed in. 

At first glance, it’s all very minimal and Scandi in design — lots of pale wood, white walls, acres of space — almost basic. But every element of the hotel’s 132 rooms and 12 suites has been designed with the help of Danish sleep expert Ana West. Mattresses are thermo-regulated, the pillow menu goes on for pages and you can download an app to control the blackout blinds, to wake you up in sync with your own circadian rhythm. 

The armchair is an anti-gravity chair, to prevent spinal decompression; and the wardrobe is stocked with resistance bands, foam rollers, a yoga mat and a meditation pillow. The mini bottles of gin and jars of gummy bears you might expect to find in the minibar have been replaced by protein balls and coconut water. There’s a projector, not for watching movies, but for streaming TechnoGym classes. And — perhaps most exciting of all — the toilet has a heated seat and lots of fun bottom-washing buttons like they do in Japan.

Our bath is big enough to swim in, but there are also two communal pools to check out in the hotel. Early risers can take a dip in Dubai’s longest infinity pool, located in the cantilever, and accessible for Siro guests (adults only) between 6am and 10am. It’s an impressive place to do some lengths (maximum two for me, this pool is long) with the Burj Khalifa and downtown Dubai’s space-age skyline as your motivational backdrop. Unsurprisingly, the lifeguards seem very used to being called upon to take pictures.

We spent the rest of the day at the lush, palm-tree-lined Garden Pool, which is shared with guests of One&Only. With its rattan loungers and crochet parasols, it all felt very Tulum or Ibiza, not the fourth floor of a Dubai skyscraper. The Indonesian restaurant, from where you can order nasi goreng direct to your sunlounger, mixed up my cultural bearings even further — but then, that’s Dubai for you.

The Siro brand is centred around five 'biohacking' pillars of fitness, nutrition, recovery, sleep and mindfulness. Which is why it has probably the best hotel gym in the world. Forget a set of sad dumbbells tucked away in the basement, at Siro there’s a 900-square-metre gym, 50 fitness classes a week, a yoga studio, a spinning room and a mysteriously-named 'Experience Box' — fitted with boxing bags, curved treadmills and strobe lights. 

Just as impressive is the spa, or should I say ‘Recovery Lab’. Here you’ll find saunas, steam rooms and cold plunge pools. So far, so standard. But there’s also a cryotherapy chamber, Therabody compression gadgets, a waterbed with 'vibra-acoustic therapy' and a high-frequency treatment that stimulates cell renewal. I opted for a workout for my skin instead, and after a one-hour Skin Facial Sculpt, which involved a firm kneading and tapping from my therapist and the use of ice-cold cryo-globes, I discover cheekbones I never knew I had.

The lobby has a smoothie bar and a vending machine selling antioxidant salads (of course), but with 11 dining experiences nearby in The Link, there’s no shortage of ways to refuel after all that exercise (slash spa time). Our favourite was Tapasake, a Japanese-Spanish fusion restaurant that sounds weird but somehow worked. The sushi was outstanding, as were the sweet padrón peppers, pan con tomate and Basque cheesecake. I’m not sure what Siro’s on-site nutritionist would make of it, but wellness is all about balance. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.