The Langham Gold Coast: A Very Polished and Not-At-All-Hidden Gem

Here’s a fun thought experiment you can do when you stay at The Langham Gold Coast: pretend you’re not a hotel guest, but a resident. Instead of feeling an impending loss of 180-degree beach and ocean views, you can embrace them as part of your fantasy morning ritual. You wake up well-rested in your king bed, hit the curtain-opening button at your fingertips, and as light floods the room, bounce out of bed to start the espresso machine. Coffee in hand, you sashay out of your 12th-floor balcony doors and survey your “front yard”—the vast Gold Coast beach and its vaster friend, the Coral Sea.

If you’re one of the lucky ones, you actually can be a resident here at Jewel, the AUD 1.4 billion tetragonal-tower development The Langham GC calls home. Two of the three towers are residential, and there are Langham-managed residential apartments here in the middle tower too. On my short stay, however, there’s not much time to spend in delulu land, since there’s a lot I want to experience before I go.

Location is the first “must-do.” The hotel is roughly 10 paces from the beach across the Gold Coast Boardwalk, a pedestrian and cycling path where visitors and locals in Lycra stride fitly, doing what I can only describe as living their best lives. Walk to the right (south) and within 10 minutes you’ll reach the patrolled Broadbeach and its cute collection of shops and cafes. Or head left (north) for 20 minutes and you’ll hit the tourist center of Cavill Avenue, Surfers Paradise. (There’s also a tram nearby, which would cut your travel time in half.)

When you get back to home base, The Langham GC offers exactly what the body needs after an active day in the Australian sun: cool, quiet spaces; a wide choice of dining options; and Chuan Spa, which promises all manner of wellness treatments, some specifically for revitalizing sunbaked skin.

I book in for a 90-minute Chuan Harmony massage, which begins with a questionnaire to determine my element. My answers indicate I’m quite balanced (scientific evidence I can use in future debates with my husband), though today I’m leaning towards metal, which informs the scent of the oil for my treatment. 

Despite a steady flow of guests in and out of the spa, there’s no sense of being rushed. After a thoroughly relaxing/rebalancing treatment, there’s time to sit in a wicker chill-out pod with a herbal tisane and a coconut treat, as practitioners chat with guests between appointments. I go back to my suite with little ear seeds stuck to meridian points in my left lobe that are meant to continue balancing my energies until they are presumably washed away in the shower or the surf. 

At dinner time, I’m treated to more Chinese culture at T’ang Court. This is your upscale modern-Australian-inflected Cantonese diner, with a shared tasting menu, the option of lounge seating, and lots and lots of wines (including a trolley of bottles, if you’ve opted for free-flow). The signature cocktails are themed by the elements here too, so I naturally start with METAL: The Moon Ore, a citrusy Tanqueray concoction, and follow up with FIRE: The Dragon’s Flame, in which Schezuan vodka brings the heat. 

Pro tip: Come here with at least one friend, since the sharing menus are where it’s at—the Dry-Aged Duck set menu at AUD 198 would have been my pick. Since it’s just me, I seek advice on smaller dishes from an extensive a-la-carte menu: yes to the dry-aged Pepe’s duck san choy bao (which I would eat at least once a week in my fantasy life as a resident), a basket of steamed scallop-and-prawn dim sum (ditto), and a huge mound of sautéed green beans in house-made XO sauce. I repeat: the portions are made for sharing.

After a massage and a big dinner, the appeal of white linens waiting for me upstairs far outweighs the draw of nearby Surfers’ nightlife. It’s a five-minute Uber to the clubs of Cavill Avenue or the less touristy Broadbeach area, not to mention nearby The Star casino (the former Jupiter’s) for live music and various other forms of entertainment. Twenty years ago I would have taken advantage of having everything in such close proximity, but in my Bed Era it’s back up to my Junior Ocean Suite I go.

The next day, after my morning balcony-coffee ritual, a late buffet breakfast at Akoya, and a middle-aged version of a “hot-girl walk” along the beachfront, it’s time for a special event at Palm Court. Today is a collab afternoon tea with luxury fashion brand Caroline Herrera, launching a new fragrance. Though today is atypical, attended by media, prominent business figures and local fashionistas, the beautifully crafted morsels presented on towering platters, the fluffy scones with clotted cream, and the premium Tavalon teas are all mainstays. The Langham in London is said to have been the birthplace of afternoon tea, so special event or not, it’s a hotel experience that deserves a place on your must-do list.

Rather than being a random occurrence, the afternoon tea event crystallizes an important part of The Langham Gold Coast’s identity. It’s one of many cosmopolitan touch-points that let you know you’re in a place with old-school British gentility in its DNA. It’s a proper taste of world-class luxury on the Goldie, and if its recent ranking as #1 beach resort in Australia is anything to go by, it’s just what the destination needed. Get a suite (or a residence!) with an ocean view for the full Langham GC experience.

All images courtesy The Langham Gold Coast.

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