I really do think Malmaison, and its sister chain Hotel du Vin, have cracked the formula for boutique city hotels, steering a clever middle ground between price, comfort and luxury. The Liverpool "Mal" (as they call them) is the fourth or fifth I've visited, and the first to be purpose built rather than nestled into the shell of a historic building. Clad in smoked glass, it fits right in with the other shiny new structures spurting up on the dockside next to the architectural three graces of the Liver, Cunard and Pier Head buildings.
Since the city is so compact, everything - from Tate Liverpool to Lime Street station to the tourist-ripoff Beatles-hellhole of Matthew Street - is a short walk away. You are ideally placed for trains to Crosby beach, where the solemn sculptures of Anthony Gormley's installation Another Place march into the sea, or for the football grounds. Or indeed, for a ferry to cross the Mersey.
Inside, there's a typical, dark but warm, open-plan Malmaison lobby, with a real fire at its centre and a mezzanine floor above for tastings from the excellent wine cellar. Beside it is the Plum bar, with upholstery the colour of a bruise, and the bar itself enclosed in an opaque purple box. On the other side of a curved screen of wooden slats is chef Adam Townsley's brasserie, which is lofty and mock-industrial and decorated with Beatles-inspired art, though it doesn't labour the point. There's a fitness room with Technogym equipment on the first floor, or the staff can suggest jogging routes around the docks.
After a day's hard slogging (slowly) around the city I had a lovely, refreshing new cocktail in Plum, an Edmund the Elder mixed with gin, elderflower cordial and soda. Adam Townsley runs an indoor barbecue and serves pizza by the foot in the brasserie, but I opted for a courgette flower, stuffed and delicately fried, followed by a great slab of Cumbrian ribeye, nice and bloody as I'd asked. (Sensibly, the menu plays up local ingredients but the meat is sourced from Donald Russell in Aberdeenshire.)
The canny young sommelier - since sadly departed I hear - took me off-piste with some superb wines by the glass left over from a tasting. The standard of cooking is high here, but it's the level of warm, engaged but unintrusive service across the whole chain that elevates Malmaison.
The bedrooms suggest sumptuousness without going OTT: slate bathrooms with downpour showers, crisp linen, a DVD player to augment the meagre satellite channels. My room looked over the road, since all the dockside rooms - including the two football-themed suites - were being reglazed. It's a credit to Malmaison's level of comfort and service that, once inside, the exterior building work was completely unnoticeable.
Criticisms? Well, the chain's in-house publicity material is starting to take friendliness to a slightly discomforting level of nudge-nudge familiarity. But that's such a small blip in a seamless experience, it's hardly worth the mention.
Malmaison Liverpool, William Jessop Way, Princes Dock, Liverpool, L3 IQZ (0151 229 5000; malmaison-liverpool.co.uk). Room rates start from £89 per room, per night.
