Plenty of Sydney Hotels Have Great Views – but Intercontinental Coogee Goes One Better

Bondi’s got the blockbuster appeal, but as a lifelong Sydneysider, I’d always choose Coogee. The surf, the craggy foreshore, the ocean baths – from the utopian McIver’s Ladies Baths and the local go-to Wylie’s – feel pulled from a catalogue used to sell the dream of Sydney to the rest of the world.

At the Intercontinental Sydney Coogee Beach, that dream is distilled, giving visitors a taste of the Coogee life.

While the hotel’s name is new, the building is familiar. The former Crowne Plaza has reopened as a five-star escape after a multi-million-dollar facelift, with a redesign led by Woods Bagot, the Adelaide-founded design studio known for its work on The Ghan and Indian Pacific train carriages, The International, Shell House and Melbourne’s Standard X.

The hotel’s 198 rooms and 22 suites are done up in shades of sandy beige with soft furnishings and light wood. It’s an understated, quiet luxury that complements the hotel’s best feature: uninterrupted views of the Pacific Ocean. Balconies off each room bend like theatre boxes hugging the hotel’s pool deck, pulling everyone’s gaze out towards the glittering sea.

A dip in the ocean is practically mandatory. Once you’ve had your fill of Coogee’s surf, the infinity-edged pool at the Intercontinental is alluring enough to beckon you back from the beach – and it’s heated for year-round dips. It’s accompanied by private cabanas, sunlounges and a pool bar with Moreton Bay bug rolls, healthy bowls, fish burgers and a clutch of fresh and fruity cocktails on the menu.

The club lounge, meanwhile, is pure resort luxury. It’s tucked away in a quiet corner with plush couches, glimpses of the Pacific and attentive service. There, chef Stephen Lech’s team provides a complimentary offering of breakfast, as well as afternoon tea and twilight cocktails and canapés.

Rick Stein’s ground-floor restaurant is the hotel’s most popular eatery. Here, dishes feel worthy of a celebratory occasion – including buttery scallops and fat prawns ready to dip into Marie Rose – but the laid-back atmosphere is just as inviting for a glass of bubbles and a few oysters.

Indulgence comes in other forms too. The hotel’s Eliva Spa is open to both hotel guests and the public, with steam rooms, infrared saunas and salt saunas constructed from pink glowing salt bricks providing the heat, while just outdoors are three heated magnesium baths and two bracingly icy-cold plunges. A suite of private treatment rooms, where you can be scrubbed with Dead Sea salt and slathered in shea butter, set the tone with dim lighting and soothing music, while the holiday glow can be locked in with facials using products from luxury Hungarian brand Omorovicza.

Plenty of Sydney hotels serve up the holy trinity of beautiful rooms, great views and in-house restaurants worth visiting, but where else can you get all that just steps away from one of Sydney’s best beaches? That’s something you’ll only find at Coogee.

Intercontinental Sydney Coogee Beach’s experience package includes an hour of thermal facility access, $100 of dining credit for Shutters or Rick Stein, Club Intercontinental access, free parking and a night of accommodation. It starts at $829 per couple.

The writer stayed as a guest of Intercontinental Sydney Coogee Beach.