Hong Kong is not a city where value-for-money is an accepted concept, especially in hotels. They’re all small and exorbitantly priced.

Having accepted that, there’s a problem to address. You need to sleep somewhere in Hong Kong. And that’s about all a hotel in the city is good for. A place to drop your bags, close your eyes, and have a shower and a bite to eat.

If only these things were all possible at Hong Kong’s new, achingly cool and acutely uncomfortable Tuve Hotel.

Hong Kong’s new, achingly cool and acutely uncomfortable Tuve Hotel. (Matteo Carcelli)

Design

Cool – or maybe cold – is the operative word here. According to its own press, Tuve Hotel was inspired by pictures of a Swedish lake (Lake Tuve) in wintertime. Having recently spent time beside an actual Swedish lake in the Arctic Circle in the wintertime, I can confidently say that Tuve has captured all of the coldness and discomfort with none of the vastness and awe. Also, it doesn’t have any Northern Lights.

The bathrooms feature white marble floors. (Matteo Carcelli)

Tuve is all raw materials, a bit of concrete here and oxidized iron there. The rooms adhere stringently to the freezing lake/industrial wasteland aesthetic by providing nowhere to sit but an uncomfortable wooden stool and metal chair permanently frozen by the air conditioning. The white marble bathroom floor takes 20 minutes of full-blast hot water to become something you’d want to stand on while showering. It’s beautiful and miserable. Swedish lake feel: check.

The design of Tuve is cold, comprised of raw materials like oxidized iron. (Matteo Carcelli)

Eat in or eat out?

As with everything at Tuve, its ground-floor restaurant the Silver Room showcases clever, minimalistic design and minimal comfort. Tuve does Italian-Japanese fusion, meaning lots of average fishy pasta, and only opens for lunch and dinner. Breakfast is not an option at the hotel, but neighbourhood maps are provided with a couple of western options nearby. Since Hong Kong is a city of teensy, great restaurants, finding a bite isn’t a chore. And since there’s nowhere to sit and eat in your room, eating out is a necessity.

The hotel is in a great area. (Matteo Carcelli)

Location, location

The key to looking cool is to not have a sign. Though Tuve’s staff, when you suggest you had a bit of trouble finding the hotel, are quick to point out that an imperceptible plaque in the sidewalk marks the hotel – a great feature for guests who walk around cities staring at the sidewalk.

Practically speaking, as a crash pad in a pricey city, Tuve is in a great area. Tin Hau – four stops on the metro from Central Station – isn’t packed with hotels like nearby Causeway Bay and feels a bit more authentic for it. There are great little restaurants all around, and Tuve is only a five-minute walk from the Metro.

Even at capacity, the hotel felt deserted. (Matteo Carcelli)

Whom you’ll meet

Even at full capacity, which the hotel claimed to be, Tuve had a feeling of a Swedish lake in wintertime, which is to say deserted. The staff were the only people around. With just three rooms a floor and no common areas, this has to be deliberate (and in keeping with Tuve’s claim on its website of being “timeless, placeless and genderless”). Is it, in fact, a place at all?

The hotel's service is much warmer than the design. (Matteo Carcelli)

Best amenity

Tuve’s ubiquitous hipness thankfully failed to permeate its staff, who don’t seem in any way obsessed with being hip more than being functional. Upon leaving, one of the front-desk clerks ran sprints between the taxi and the hotel, bundling three months’ worth of souvenirs into the cab with speed and dexterity that could never be described as cool (because she was working hard at something she cared about, you see).

The air conditioning was uncomfortable in the early spring. (Matteo Carcelli)

If I could change one thing

It’s possible that in Hong Kong’s summer, where the entire city melts, the sub-zero air conditioner would be worshipped by deeply sweaty guests. In springtime, or late winter, it simply became another Swedish feature: a melancholy reminder that the elements are something outside of our control, and that hypothermia will ultimately kill us.

Tuve Hong Kong, 16 Tsing Fung St., Tin Hau Hong Kong, tuve.hk; 66 rooms from $165