Red doors to a storied world in Queensland's capital

An arty new oasis in the Brisbane CBD spills all the local secrets.

There are 158 Indigo hotels around the world, from New York to Warsaw to Bali, even in the Galapagos on San Cristobal Island. Just two are in Australia, including this latest addition in Queensland, opened last year and part of the multinational IHG hotel group. Despite the global pedigree, Hotel Indigo Brisbane City Centre is rich in hyperlocal themes and references, its creators having scoured a five-kilometre radius for neighbourhood stories to incorporate into the hotel's design. The stories start at the entrance, where guests pass through six-metre-high red doors that pay giant homage to the fairy doors hidden in laneways around Brisbane, in particular a tiny red one on Burnett Lane, a 10-minute walk away.

Indigo sits close to the Brisbane River on Turbot Street, which runs through Brisbane's legal district. This location, amid barristers' chambers and the city courthouses, is reflected at reception, where the desk resembles a vintage legal filing cabinet and illuminated numbers on the wall reference key dates and case numbers of infamous local incidents. These include a 1942 bar brawl between Australian and US servicemen, and a 1912 "Black Friday" strike led by unionist Emma Miller, who stuck her hair pin into the police commissioner's horse on the protest march to nearby Parliament House.

Indigo describes itself as a boutique luxury and lifestyle brand, but the artworks and murals through the hotel (with local themes, by local artists) make it a bolder and more dramatic sort of place. Among my favourite works is Sammy the Bengal tiger, inspired by the escape of said tiger in the 1880s, from a menagerie of performing animals kept just up the road. Two murals, in Izakaya Publico restaurant, soar six metres high (one is revealed only at night) while hotel corridors feature a blue butterfly motif celebrating Queensland's native Ulysses species. I didn't know until after my visit that if you look closely, you can see faces in the butterfly wings.

Beige begone. A shade of maroon is the stand-out colour in my 15th-floor one-bedroom suite, which has a view into high-rise office blocks, and TVs on both sides of the room divider, so you can watch from the couch (a curvalicious maroon number) or in bed. The room, one of 212 in the hotel, is set up for business as well as pleasure, with a sizeable desk where you can work and eat lunch (I ordered pan-fried gyoza from room service) at the same time. The lights above my king bed, when turned on, reveal more little butterflies on the wall.

As well as Izakaya Publico Japanese restaurant, which claims Australia's first and only warayaki (straw-fired) grill, just off reception is the speakeasy-style 1603 bar, where young staff dressed in black jeans and maroon T-shirts deliver cocktails and dishes either grilled, raw or fried, like butta barra (pork belly) skewers and kingfish with jalapeno salsa.

Indigo has its own fitness centre and, in yet another whimsical touch, you follow the dots to the Voco hotel next door, which shares its rooftop pool with Indigo guests.

I accidentally order a sandwich for dinner, not twigging what the "sando" in "katsu sando" is short for. The katsu chicken, salted slaw and tonkatsu sauce in crustless white bread is simple yet sublime - my most delicious mistake ever.

Where: Hotel Indigo Brisbane City Centre, 27-35 Turbot Street, Brisbane, Queensland

How much: Nightly rates from about $259 for a standard room

How much: Nightly rates from about $259 for a standard room

Sarah Maguire was a guest of Hotel Indigo.

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