Discover The Ned Doha – where the contemporary meets the traditional
By Caroline Phillips
WHY VISIT DOHA?
Located on the Eastern shore of the Arabian Peninsula, there’s some ooh-ah contemporary architecture, amazing food and warm (avoid the scorching) weather. Qatar is not just famous for hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, its world-class airline, exporting oil, its high per capita incomes, and mediating successfully in politically inflammatory situations. It’s also safe and has a low crime rate — you can charge your phone untended in a public place and return and it’s still there — and so clean you could lick the streets. Plus, the locals are friendly, smiley, hospitable and quick to offer directions to tourists, and they’re noticeably nice to children — everyone seems to have at least one in tow, plus a stonkingly big Land Cruiser.
WHERE TO STAY
There are only three Neds globally: London, NY and Doha. The last one is in the former Ministry of the Interior, which has been magicked into a cool boutique hotel by Sir David Chipperfield. It’s on the Corniche (the waterfront promenade), bang next to the Amiri Diwan royal palace and within walking distance of the best sights, including the Souq Waqif (bazaar) and with views of the cutting-edge Museum of Islamic Art from some windows. If it’s a Soho House vibe you want with tip-top service and excellent everything else, this is the hotel to hit. The 1970s Brutalist exterior is softened inside by lots of velvet, suede and sexily dark colours. Plus, you can glide across acres of original marble floors and enjoy 150 artworks — from glass artefacts to fabric pieces, the majority created by regional women. (Don’t miss the wind chimney chandelier that ‘sings’ in the breeze). This stylish place is a magnet for elegant women with big sunglasses, Hepburn brows and trout lips framed by abayas and men wearing gleaming white Ghutra headdress and full-length white robes.
WHERE TO SLEEP
With just 90 rooms and suites, nab room 217 with its original parquet floor, sculpted concrete ceiling and ultra comfy bed — complete with view of the Corniche and cool contemporary buildings. Every last detail has been considered — from lighting that you can actually read by in bed, a groovy fabric blind that hides the television and a safe with a convenient top-opening door. For retro cool, there’s a Deco-meets-1970s-inspired fan-shaped burl bedhead, Roberts’ radio and Bakelite-style phone. Add to that your very own Murano chandelier and rainforest shower with powerful jets in the marble bathroom, and what more could you want?
WHERE TO EAT & DRINK
There are a whopping seven restaurants in the hotel alone. Hotfoot it to Millie’s Tea Lounge for breakfast, afternoon tea (they’ve bagged a great French pastry chef) and their Insta-famous cappuccinos that come complete with 23-carat gold on top (froth that comes in at about £20 a cup). Cecconi’s boasts a pizza oven and homemade pasta; the Electric Diner’s for burgers and shakes; Hadika offers tip-top Middle Eastern food; while Malibu gets you California-inspired food (and soon they’ll be offering ‘functional food,’ meaning nosh as medicine). Don’t miss Kaia for Pan-Asian — think excellent flipping-fresh sashimi and maki rolls to Dynamite Shrimp (which is what it says: dynamite in terms of an explosion of great tastes) soft-shell crab or splash out on their Wagyu striploin. You need never step outside this palace of gastronomy.
WHERE TO CHILL
After you’ve done your laps in the 30-metre outdoor pool, it’s time to chill in The Ned Doha Spa. This is a boutique spa with just three treatment rooms — and prayer mats for those who wish to nip into a quiet spot to convene with Allah — plus a Hammam. Go at night and bag the couples’ suite to look over twinkling lights and the city as you’re pummelled into bliss. Have a signature massage with Luisita and she’ll stretch you with Thai techniques, relieve your knots with Swedish massage and release your stress with Indian scalp massage, leaving you on a pink cloud.
WHERE TO NETWORK
Overlooking the Persian Gulf and boasting a connoisseurs’ cigar collection stored in two family fridge-size humidors, Ned’s Club is where its global membership of HNWs, CEOs and CFOs go to network, socialise and to listen to wellness or arty talks.
WHAT TO SEE & DO
Do gawp at architect Jean Nouvel’s sculptural National Museum of Qatar, its shape inspired by that of the local desert rose crystal. Inside, you’ll get a hang of Qatar’s former desert, then fishing and pearl-diving life before oil was drilled, alongside regional artifacts and ethnographic materials. The Museum of Islamic Art is a wow! building designed by I.M Pei, and the century-old trading market Souq Waqif — with its falcon hospital (including an intensive care unit and quarantine section), shops for falcon equipment and accessories (12 different types of gloves), and falcon pharmacy just streets away from mounds of gold and spices — is probably the city’s best-known landmark.
Whatever you do, don’t miss the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum — the humungous, private collection of the eponymous squillionaire businessman who’s one of the royal family and the great-grandson of the founder of Qatar. It oozes with passion — the Sheikh visits daily — and character. (In Al-Shahaniya on the outskirts of Doha, it’s about 30 minutes from The Ned. You can get a taxi in seconds and the trip costs about the same as it does to go to the end of a short street in the UK. Plus, the Doha roads are excellent). The museum contains almost everything you can think of and more — this guy should really be dubbed the Sheikh of Maximalism — and if you tackle it at breakneck speed, you’ll cover it in 90 minutes.
Sometimes dubbed the Sheikh’s ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’, this stonking 60,000 square-metre museum is more a ‘Warehouse of Curiosities,’ bursting with the downright eccentric and quirky (a collection of cassette tapes?! A selection of Coca-Cola cans?!) to the exquisite and priceless. Go here for Qatari heritage — weapons, coins and rugs through to a room replicating its first women’s hospital — through to Nazi memorabilia, Napoleon’s coffer and an Iranian 17th century copper ewer, allegedly for collecting the wife’s tears when her husband went to war. (Upon his return, he could measure the wife’s love for him. Anyone fake it with seawater?). Don’t miss the world’s smallest Quran (written using horsehair) juxtaposed with one of its largest. It doesn’t end here. There’s a department store-size room bursting with Islamic furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl near to a room dedicated to Judaism and yet another housing a Christian confession box. Plus, there’s an airport hangar-style space of 300 gleaming classic cars, trucks and motorbikes: think Ford Mustang’s ‘Eleanor’ beside a Hummer near a painted van for hunting with falcons in the desert.
The museum is a madcap Aladdin’s cave of bric-a-brac through to priceless antiques. Just when you think it’s coming to an end, there’s a dinosaur head and entire original 18th century Syrian house with courtyard. Not to mention a shrine to Princess Diana that’s closed to the public. (Shhh, don’t tell, they unlocked it for me and it contains Lady Di dolls and Andrew Morton’s book through to commemorative plates, mugs and the like.) It’s a unique place. Little wonder Michelle Obama and Ronaldo are reportedly fans.
For more information about The Ned Doha, click here. Caroline Phillips is an award-winning freelance journalist who contributes to publications from Sunday and daily newspapers to glossy magazines and various luxury websites. To see more of her work, go to www.carolinephillips.net.
