A £30 million new-build rising from a former canal-side car park in Piccadilly Basin is not the most obvious origin story for one of Manchester's most atmospheric hotels, yet Dakota Deluxe Manchester, which opened in 2019, makes a compelling case for building dark rather than bright. KPP Architects delivered a nine-storey block clad entirely in near-black brick and glazing, its facade articulated by luminous white-framed window grids that glow against the dusk sky like something between a New York loft building and a northern mill — the effect is unmistakably urban, assured, and a little cinematic. Inside, interior designer Amanda Rosa's signature palette runs deep brown, cognac leather, burnished brass, and charcoal throughout. The bar is the spiritual centre of the ground floor: long black-granite counters, rows of brass pendant tubes descending from the ceiling, and walls hung with monochrome photography create an atmosphere closer to a serious cocktail bar than a hotel lobby. The 137 bedrooms and 27 suites follow the same logic — leather-upholstered headboards, woollen throws in taupe and camel, dark timber joinery, and Venetian blinds that filter Manchester's grey light into something almost flattering. The Grand Deluxe penthouse suite claims the title of largest hotel suite in the city, a boast that the building's massing, rising commandingly above the Basin's waterways, does nothing to contradict.

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