Grand Hyatt Taipei

With over 850 rooms and suites, an enviable location in the shadows of Taipei 101 and panoramic views of the nearby tree covered mountains that border this fast growing city, Grand Hyatt Taipei is a popular choice for visitors to Taipei who are looking for a well established luxury hotel to base themselves.

Upon arrival, the modern and chic lobby is a perfect indication of what you can expect throughout the rest of hotel; clean and contemporary design is found everywhere including the recently refurbished guest rooms. Natural light streams through the atrium lobby, sounds of waterfalls come from the ornamental water features and you are welcomed with a sense of space and purpose as people go about their business.

After check-in we’re shown to our room which had a striking, up close view of The Grand Hyatt Taipei’s famous neighbour, the iconic Taipei 101 building. The mix of urban development set against the forested mountains in the background provided a captivating vista from our window and we often found ourselves gazing out at the city below.

There was a huge TV with a good selection of channels, a seating area and a bathroom with a shower and a bathtub; the design managing to be compact and spacious at the same time.

Taipei is a great city, full of life, colour, things to do, see and eat; it’s a centre for business travellers and leisure travellers alike and this luxury hotel is well suited to both.

There are facilities for all including extensive conference facilities, a business lounge, an outdoor heated pool and 2 well-equipped 24 hour gyms, not to mention being within easy reach of some of the city’s best shopping locations and key transport hubs.

We’re always keen to find out how a hotel caters for guests with a plant based diet and whether they are able to offer the same quality of service to their vegan guests, as they do to other guests. We checked in to see how the Grand Hyatt Taipei could veganise their service and to see what kind of vegan food we’d find there.

The Vegan Food

There are 10 outlets offering food and drinks at the Grand Hyatt Taipei so guests have a huge choice of places to dine. We took breakfast in both the Grand Club and the main ‘market place restaurant’ named ‘Café’; both were excellent.

The breakfast buffet at ‘Cafe’ is extensive with various worldwide cuisine on offer; vegan guests wanting to spoil themselves should definitely head here for a leisurely breakfast with a huge choice of vegan options. It’s a busy bustling affair situated on the ground floor of the hotel; seats next to the floor to ceiling glass windows allow you to watch life of the street passing you by as you eat. The restaurant is huge, with live cooking stations and an extensive selection for vegan guests.

We found it best to ask for a member of staff to show us around and check the ingredients of each dish with various chefs to ascertain what we could eat. They were helpful and thorough and helped identify plenty of options. Some were vegan by default like the selection of Indian curries and lemony, peanut filled pilau rice full of roasted chillies. There were also crispy fried vadai (tiny spiced lentil donuts) served with a variety of vegan chutneys, dosa (rice flour pancakes) and popadoms to complete a whole Indian feast.

There was the usual fruit and cereal offering, but also a wide variety of nuts, seeds and healthy oatmeal (made with water not cow’s milk). The helpful staff also got some extra options made for us including 2 kinds of noodle dish with vegetables, another chance to practice our chopstick skills.

There were a selection of burritos, and not wanting us to miss out, the member of staff showing us around asked them to make a vegan version for us. We received avocado, alfalfa and salad packed wraps that had been finished on the grill, giving them a great crispy, toasty finish. Accompanied by some spice from the selection of homemade chilli sauces (there were 5 that were naturally vegan) it made for great breakfast option.

In the evening, we headed to the Grand Club (access included with our Grand Club Deluxe King room) for complimentary cocktails and canapés.

With a little bit of notice given (always best to do this if you can) the staff in the Grand Club prepared special vegan food for us to enjoy with our evening drinks. We were served steamed Chinese buns, vegetable dim sum, some very tasty mixed vegetable tarts and a delicious bowl of spaghetti with tomato sauce. All of the food was delicious and the team in the Grand Club went out of their way to make sure we enjoyed our vegan experience with them.

We can confirm there is little chance of going hungry as a vegan at Grand Hyatt Taipei; everyone we encountered was extremely helpful in finding vegan food for us, meaning we got to enjoy everything this great luxury property has to offer.

The Vegan Essentials

The bed in our Grand Club Deluxe King room was already made up with non feather pillows and and a non-feather duvet (which is always good to see).

As with all Grand Hyatt properties worldwide, the bathroom amenities are from the New York based ‘Spa Visionary’ June Jacobs Spa Collection.

For us, this alone was a great reason to stay at Grand Hyatt Taipei, nothing better than checking into a luxury hotel safe in the knowledge the bathroom amenities are 100% vegan and contain no animal based products and have not been tested on animals.

Well done Grand Hyatt for offering June Jacobs amenities to your guests (we love them!)

The Vegan Food Quest Verdict

Check in to the Grand Hyatt Taipei for a feather free sleep, a bathroom stocked with high quality, luxury vegan amenities and service from staff who’ll go above and beyond to ensure you enjoy vegan luxury experience.

Savour a huge selection at breakfast where you can eat around the world, vegan style, trying a range of vegan cuisines including local Taiwanese food.

Treat yourself to a room that gives you Grand Club access to enjoy the additional extras this gives you (such as afternoon tea and evening canapés and cocktails).

We were guests of Grand Hyatt Taipei but please rest assured that their generosity in hosting us didn’t influence our views

Grand Hyatt Taipei
2 SongShou Road
Taipei
Taiwan

Telephone: +886 2 2720 1234
Email: taipei.grand@hyatt.com
Rooms From: £200 / $300 (Nov 2015)