Travel News

MACq 01, the Hobart hotel dedicated to storytelling

There are stories to tell and joys to be had at Hobart’s new MACq 01.

By Michael Harden
The Premium Waterfront Suite
Hobart's newest hotel, the 114-room white cypress-clad MACq 01 on Macquarie Wharf, is a storytelling hotel. It starts with signs adorning the timber entrance stair risers ("Every Story Needs a Start", "Every Villain Needs a Hero") and runs to a team of full-time "storytellers", found artefacts decorating lobby and hallways and to the guestrooms themselves, each named for a Tasmanian character, Indigenous and European, with their story and image attached to every door. It's a place eager to tell you a tale.
Old Wharf restaurant
The four-storey building with its Jenga-like façade of verandas stretches along the wharf, its shape and size mimicking the former shipping shed that once occupied the site. Space and natural light are features of every room, from the oversized standards to loft apartment-like suites at each end of the building. Spacious bathrooms with textured timber floors (even in the shower - lovely underfoot), dedicated space for luggage, individually decorated bedheads (by local artist Troy Ruffels) and brilliant minibars stocked with games, snacks and Tassie spirits make these rooms to hang out in.
Some of the found artefacts used to decorate the hotel
There's good public space, too. Both the Old Wharf Restaurant with its Tasmanian seafood-focused menu and the Story Bar with its collections of Tassie gin and whisky emphasise the water views via floor-to-ceiling glass.
Rooms from $305; MACq 01, 18 Hunter St, Hobart.