Gazing upon Jiangnan with the Lion King’s Aura in Jinling
August 2022
The Ritz-Carlton, Nanjing
Perched over 200 meters above Deji Plaza
overlooking Jinling from a God's-eye view —
the entire city of Nanjing unfolds before you.
The elegance of the Six Dynasties past,
the prosperity of today’s metropolis.
On a lingering autumn afternoon, between the high-rises of Nanjing’s Xinjiekou, the setting sun gilds the clouds with a brilliant golden edge, casting a halo over the city. Plane trees stretch in countless silhouettes, sunlight filtering through the gaps to dapple the pavement around Deji Plaza in dancing light and shadow.
This is undoubtedly Nanjing’s most bustling district, and here stands the 101st Ritz-Carlton in the world.
Jiangnan is a land of beauty, Jinling the capital of emperors. As the ancient capital of six dynasties, Nanjing has always had a folk love for the imperial “lion” — even place names alone can be listed: Lion Bridge, Lion Mountain, Lion Palace, plus the famous dish lion’s head meatballs, and the stone lions (pixiu) seen everywhere in mausoleums and gardens.
The arrival of the “Lion King” Ritz-Carlton feels almost inevitable.
Word in the industry has it that it single-handedly raised room rates for the entire Nanjing hotel scene.
The Ritz-Carlton, Nanjing occupies Deji Plaza Phase II, where several intersecting cut-ins make the building resemble interlocking blocks. The façade weaves transparent blue and semi-transparent light green glass, as if wrapping the tower in a bright, playful fabric.
Deji is currently Nanjing’s most luxurious shopping mall, home to Louis Vuitton, Armani and other major brands. To offer better sightlines and more privacy for guests, the hotel’s ground-level area connecting to the mall has been designed as a reception floor.
Rumor has it that Ritz-Carlton countdown to opening is unlike most hotels’ preparations. Every time a new Ritz is about to open, over a hundred seasoned “Blue Bloods” (as Ritz staff are known) from Ritz-Carltons around the world are assembled into a training team. They arrive at the soon-to-open property to share their experiences and insights, deeply train local employees, inspect and fine-tune hotel facilities. Staff would experience the hotel from a guest’s perspective, switching roles to understand guest needs and polish their own art of hospitality.
Luxurious hardware is only a small part of a hotel; every Ritz-Carlton operates thanks to the meticulous preparation and precise functioning of a well-trained, seamlessly coordinated vast system.
Nanjing Ritz’s prelude balances Ritz-Carlton’s opulence with the Zen spirit of an eastern courtyard. Two crescent-shaped landscape gardens, planted with century-old podocarpus trees, encircle a sculptural fountain. This miniature “mountain and water” creates a tiny paradise, cutting off the clamor of the bustling shopping center and guarding the impressive hotel entrance in quiet elegance and charm.
The hotel’s main entrance doesn’t face the street directly. It cleverly uses a rotary design, and the over-eight-ton sculpture “Rhythm” presides here. Cars take this circular route to enter and exit, maximizing privacy.
The three-meter-tall white sculpture “Rhythm,” created by a Colombian artist, upholds Ritz-Carlton’s luxury standards. What appears to be an understated artwork is actually carved from a single block of precious Italian Carrara marble — the same material used for Michelangelo’s famous “David.”
The abundant daylight and astonishing ceiling height of the ground-level arrival hall are striking. They provide ample space for two giant contemporary sculptures weighing 1.4 tons each, justifying the space’s nickname “Contemporary Art Gallery.” In the elevator lobby leading to the sky lobby, a multimedia artwork “Flowing Gold” depicts the magnificent patterns created by flowing sand, bringing a sense of movement to the deeply steady interior tone.
The way The Ritz-Carlton, Nanjing handles culture and locality is intricate yet orderly, leading guests to deeply desire to explore the city.
The Ritz-Carlton is known as “the roof of the world,” and high floors are her perpetual pursuit.
The decorative paintings and carefully calibrated ambient lighting in the elevator foyer leading to the 38th-floor sky lobby all silently convey the designer’s ingenuity.
The hotel integrates the “Five Elements” into its design. “Water,” as a flowing element, is a recurring sight at Nanjing Ritz — cascading from the 40th floor down to the 38th, just as the city itself has been nurtured by the gentle waters of the Yangtze River and Qinhuai River. “Gold” is the most widely used: golden plum blossoms, metallic walls, gold embossed signage, golden backgrounds... while wooden tables, clay porcelain, and other materials of varied textures complement perfectly, exuding an ancient charm.
To highlight the hotel’s emphasis on the dining experience and respect for guest privacy, when the public elevator opens at the 38F sky lobby, the first thing you see is the lobby lounge, not the front desk.
The lobby lounge, laid out around floor-to-ceiling windows, is deliberately raised by four steps, adding depth to the spatial layers. The window-side section features not only a long bar facing the windows but is also adorned with verses depicting the beautiful local scenery of Nanjing — serving as timeless commentary for those leaning on the railing and gazing into the distance. The non-window side is divided by arrays of bookshelves into semi-private nooks, creating a sheltered atmosphere. The collection of aesthetic and philosophical books invites guests to wander through a sea of literature.
Thanks to its soaring height, the heavenly dome of The Ritz-Carlton, Nanjing’s sky lobby fills your entire field of vision. The 38th-floor lobby lounge takes the bustling Xinjiekou and the shimmering Xuanwu Lake in the distance as its backdrop. Well-dressed guests chat and laugh within, yet the space remains relaxed and expansive.
Overlooking Purple Mountain, gazing far at Xuanwu Lake.
Stepping into the hotel, you immediately sense the beauty of elements from this ancient capital of six dynasties, a link between time and modern culture. What Nanjing has experienced is also what time itself has lived through, leaving its mark everywhere and evoking a unique historical memory.
Nanjing Ritz is called by industry insiders a “contemporary art museum.”
A set of numbers sums up the hotel’s collection: artworks from as many as 16 countries, over 70 artists, more than 300 types of artworks, over 900 ornaments, and 6000+ books... in short, you are wrapped in an artistic atmosphere.
The most special and prominent, considered the treasure of the house, is the “Art Wall” displaying works from different eras of Nanjing. The art wall in the 38th-floor lobby adopts the curatorial display method often used in museums, elegantly showcasing eight works that represent the pinnacle of artistic development in the Jiangnan region from the Ming and Qing dynasties to today: a handscroll of seven-character quatrains in running script by Tang Yin from 1519, a fan page of orchid, bamboo and rock by Ma Shouzhen, “Cloud Forest Outing” by Fu Baoshi, an excerpt from “Xian Qing Ou Ji” by Guan Jun... Blending calligraphy, traditional Chinese painting, and Western oil painting, it fully reveals the graceful elegance of the ancient capital Jinling.
Under dim lighting, the wall in this lofty space eschews the daytime bustle and becomes exceptionally elegant. Two sets of Baccarat crystal glasses nearby have an undeniable presence — even the untrained eye can see they are invaluable.
The lounge bookshelves also display many botanical picture books, which cleverly lead to the two Carrara marble sculptures symbolizing “Seed” and “Grain” placed above the reflecting pools at either end of the lounge. Together with the philosophical readings throughout the lounge, they initiate a profound discussion on the continuity of life and time.
I really like Guan Jun’s calligraphy works and the Carrara marble sculpture “Seed” in a corner of the lobby lounge — they seem to contemplate and narrate the birth of life.
The 39th floor houses two Chinese restaurants: “Pin Ning Fu” and “Di Yue Xuan.”
At the entrance of Di Yue Xuan, which focuses on high-end Cantonese cuisine, the lighting is brilliantly executed. Multiple private rooms and a main dining area with only a few tables underscore its respect for privacy. Corridors decorated with countless doorframes and wall lamps run through both Chinese restaurants, each ending with a waterfall wall, using a sense of drama to avoid the usual monotony of walking through enclosed hallways. Each private room is named after an ancient Nanjing city gate — Huaiyuan, Tongji, Yifeng, Zhengyang... If you dine with a true Nanjing friend, they could surely regale you with the stories of all 13 gates.
Pin Ning Fu’s open kitchen whets your appetite before you even enter — the steaming dim sum and the busy chefs make the restaurant feel theatrical, while also fully showcasing the openness and delicacy of Pin Ning Fu, which specializes in Huaiyang cuisine, especially Nanjing local dishes.
Pin Ning Fu’s tableware draws inspiration from the Qing dynasty court painter Feng Ning’s “Jinling Tu” (based on a Song court painting). Each piece is meticulously hand-painted by artists and strictly fired. The prosperity and elegance of ancient capital Jinling can be tasted on the tongue and sensed at the fingertips.
The design heavily incorporates brick elements from the city wall, giving a sense of ancient charm, as if dining on the Ming Great Wall.
Pin Ning Fu’s advantage is its accessible pricing — it’s nearly always fully booked.
As the sayings go: “Don’t eat drunken crab after the Lantern Festival; don’t eat wind-dried chicken after the festival; don’t eat anchovy after Qingming; don’t eat sturgeon after Dragon Boat Festival.” Huaiyang cuisine is also called “rich man’s cuisine.” The dishes recorded in the “Pleasure Boats of Yangzhou” of yesteryear, once privately enjoyed by the great salt merchants in their deep mansions — people perhaps comparable to today’s celebrities and tycoons — later ascended to the elegant halls of the imperial court and state banquets, and now are recreated at Pin Ning Fu.
In “Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital,” Meng Yuanlao of the Southern Song dynasty wrote: “All rarities from the four seas are gathered here for trade; all exotic flavors of the world are assembled in the kitchens.” Such a Bianjing could truly be called heaven on earth, and was a landmark of urban prosperity, from poetry to calligraphy, from porcelain to cuisine.
Today, The Ritz-Carlton, Nanjing continues this unique perception of ancient aesthetics and food culture. Just as scholars in life’s valleys could be intoxicated by studying braised pork, wandering snowy mountains and woods just to find deliciousness and culinary secrets.
Every grain of rice, every sip of soup, every cup, every chopstick — through ancient-style cuisine, one explores the elegant and interesting tales of those times.
Huaiyang cuisine, known for its freshness and refinement, is given new twists by the chef. Exquisite knife work, skilled arrangement, and precise color matching make Huaiyang dishes like exquisitely crafted artworks. The clear-braised lion’s head meatball, made from pork neck snowflake meat and secretly prepared with pigeon egg white, simmered in stock for six hours over gentle heat, melts in the mouth — rich but not greasy. It’s a must-order for many who come for its reputation. One bite, and I could see the inner drama of Ouyang Xiu, the governor and literary master, writing ten thousand words at a banquet in Pingshan Hall, gazing at poetic food while drinking.
The “Lotus Pond Stuffed Delicacy” takes fresh pork marinated with scallions, ginger, Sichuan pepper, and tangerine peel, then stuffs it into hollowed lotus seedpods. Combined with soft glutinous fox nuts, mixed with the fresh aroma of lotus seedpod, the texture is immensely rich. The plating brings lotus root into play, creating a scene of perfect Jiangnan season. It made me taste Su Li’s verse and know Yangzhou, recalling the allusion of the Four Scholars piling plates with snowy fish bellies and boiling chicken heads like pearls.
The orange stuffed with crab is a true wonder. A large, ripe orange is selected, the top cut off, and most of the flesh scooped out leaving only a little juice. Pre-steamed crab meat and roe are then stuffed inside, and it’s steamed again in a small cup with wine, vinegar, and water. The orange’s fragrance and the crab’s tenderness are fully released, much like the refined poetry gathering at the Lotus Fragrance Pavilion in the Grand View Garden, where lake delicacies and fruity aromas converge, evoking the mood of new wine, chrysanthemums, fragrant oranges, and crabs.
The “Gold and Jade Soup” brings Du Shaomu’s lingering Jiangnan sentiment. Carefully selected tender, smooth, and slippery tofu demands the chef to be calm and focused, steady with the knife. Using straight cuts, the tofu is first sliced, then shredded into uniform lengths fine enough to thread a needle. The entire process requires absolute concentration, completed in one breath.
The Dongpo pork, where strips of evenly fatty and lean pork are cut into one-inch cubes, marinated with wine and soy sauce, placed in a clay pot with a little water, and slowly braised over charcoal until soft but not crumbly, fatty but not greasy — it gives those of us crying out to lose weight the blissfully guilty happiness of a mouthful bursting with juice.
Desserts are a set of ink-wash paintings: chestnut cake paired with lotus flower pastry, sweet but not cloying, leaving you thoroughly satisfied.
Thus, elegantly savoring the flavors of Jinling, discussing ancient and modern as the lights come on.
The 40th floor is a sky wellness space comprising a spa, pool, and gym.
The swimming pool, enclosed by three sides of floor-to-ceiling windows and screened by greenery, resembles a conservatory. The 23-meter pool is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows and plants, and its standout feature is the resort-style sofa area on one side — Chinese window lattices blend with a delicate pavilion, a luohan bed merges seamlessly with sun loungers, and Chinese beams and Western arches complement each other.
Every day around 6 p.m., the afterglow of the setting sun filters through the high glass windows and spills onto the pool water. A young girl dives into the water like golden brocade and performs a 20-meter medley of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle, stunning everyone around. The professional lifeguard, when chatting, carefully advises us on how to explore the city of Jinling...
The pool closes at 11 p.m., but the gym is open 24 hours.
The gym, commanding a view of Xinjiekou, not only boasts excellent scenery but is equipped entirely with Technogym high-end machines. There’s also the only professional-athlete-grade treadmill in Jiangsu Province, a body fat monitor, and an impressively adorable water dispenser that looks like Baymax... This comprehensive setup left my fitness-obsessed companion Cheng Zijia exclaiming in amazement. She spent three hours a day lifting weights and swimming, and had to be dragged away.
“The Ritz-Carlton Spa,” a signature feature of the brand, is also highly recommended. Eight spa rooms use Yuhua stone as room numbers, and the relaxation lounge has business-class-style recliners. The spa even adopts peach pink as its signature color — FRETTE specially commissioned its Italian design team to create an exclusive peach pink spa robe for the hotel, both cute and healing.
Worth a special mention is that the spa uses professional skincare products from La Mer and Swiss Perfection, offering a luxury-lady-level skincare experience.
We stayed in room 5810, an executive suite.
The 58th floor has its own executive club with a separate front desk. While checking in, you can sit before floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, enjoying afternoon tea while taking in sweeping views of Purple Mountain, Xuanwu Lake, Zhongshan Road, and the Yangtze River.
The suite is remarkable, offering a more pleasingly expansive space for sojourning.
Custom dark wood furniture in the guestrooms complements the calm, serene interior. Clean, elegant design strokes are elevated by a framework of Chinese structural aesthetics, with cleanly cut lines creating a transparent, bright character.
The ancient capital of six dynasties has seen countless heroes, and the front half of the suite highlights “elegance.” The most touching touch: the designer used nearly an entire wall to create a bookcase, displaying works including Eastern and Western literary classics (an English edition of “Dream of the Red Chamber” and a Chinese edition of “Pride and Prejudice”), “The Eighteen Eccentrics of Yangzhou,” and art books related to the hotel’s art collection.
The “work area” in the room is richly appointed. The T-shaped desk is highly versatile: the protruding center part is perfect for productive work or leisurely dining. The extended desktop even hides a jewelry box and a lighted dressing mirror, seamlessly merging multiple needs. The bookshelf assembly holds a variety of books, porcelain, and artists’ paintings. The “Tender Lotus Holding Dew” tea set has quite a pedigree — made from Yixing celadon, an intangible cultural heritage, personally crafted by ceramic art master Tan Zhijian, it’s of considerable value.
A towering wall of books cleverly reflects the pillar-mounted artwork “Wormhole” by Chen Qi at the room’s corner.
A reverence for nature and a respect for culture run through every detail.
Local Nanjing elements are woven into the guestroom design: night lights and mirror frame lights feature a plum blossom pattern in imitation of colored glaze; the bathroom wall tiles incorporate a lotus petal motif (Xuanwu Lake is a wonderful spot for lotus appreciation); between the two bathroom vanity mirrors, a shelf holds an ornament with gold foil craftsmanship (Nanjing has a 2,500-year history of gold foil production, accounting for 70% of China’s and 60% of the world’s output).
The octagon is a key design element recurring throughout the room: the octagonal ceiling above the bed, the octagonal dressing mirror in the bathroom, and the octagonal bathtub frame. These repeated elements effectively enhance the space’s utility and sense of system.
The bathroom is impressively spacious and furnished with brands full of sincerity. The bathtub is by Kaldewei of Germany, used by 40% of luxury hotels, with walls just 3.5 millimeters thick. The showerhead is from Dornbracht, Germany, with a single faucet costing over 10,000 RMB. Even the mouthwash cup is no ordinary item — it’s a lead-free crystal glass by German professional glassware brand Schott Zwiesel. Amenities are by Asprey, the official supplier to the British royal family.
The well-stocked minibar is equipped with Spiegelau crystal glasses and even bar tools. Even the scale is by German brand Aliseo, turning the terrifying ritual of weighing yourself into a pleasure.
A Simmons Beautyrest Black label mattress with 600-thread-count, custom FRETTE towels, bathrobes, and pajamas; uniquely local lotus bath salts; a Tivoli Audio Bluetooth speaker and wireless charger by the bedside... the concept of luxury service is perfected down to the smallest detail.
Telescopes are placed in all Premier rooms and above.
What do you see through the telescope?
The Ritz-Carlton, Nanjing has five restaurants and bars. There’s the all-day dining French restaurant Xin Yi; Di Yue Xuan specializing in Cantonese cuisine; Pin Ning Fu combining Huaiyang and Nanjing cuisines; the lobby lounge where you can enjoy afternoon tea while overlooking the cityscape; and FLAIR on the top floor.
The executive lounge on the 58th floor continues the sense of dramatic tension and control of spatial layering. The lounge offers five meal presentations a day, car service within three kilometers, complimentary clothes pressing, and 24-hour in-room coffee and tea service... making this, the world’s 101st Ritz-Carlton, even more powerful and utterly radiant.
This executive privilege truly suits all kinds of luxury hotel layabouts. It also convinced me of the rumor that Nanjing Ritz single-handedly raised the room rates of the entire city.
Upon arrival, while checking in and marveling at Nanjing’s cityscape, we enjoyed afternoon tea — the chocolates were shaped like Yuhua stones, incredibly lifelike. For breakfast, one must order a Nanjing duck blood vermicelli soup to truly say you’ve been to Jinling. Lunch and dinner quality were superb — pipa shrimp, 5J ham, freshly grilled steak, lobster rice soup, sashimi... and the joy extended to the sweet hours until 10 p.m., when you can freely DIY your own cocktails!
The dining environment includes both open spaces and several partitioned private areas, with a small meeting room at the far end for team building or meetings. The bar area has a separate section with a TV for sports fans. The service from the ladies and gentlemen is remarkable; whenever you have a need, they are always there at the right moment...
Of course, beyond all this, if you fancy richer, more varied alcoholic experiences, you can do as we did and head to FLAIR on the 62nd floor, the hotel’s top. It’s the best bar in Nanjing, offering all the atmosphere and mood needed for sipping or cigar smoking.
This rhythm simply wouldn’t let us leave the hotel!
Yes, we didn’t leave for three days!
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Copy | Lian Erye
Layout | Qike Chenpi Xianhuamei
Photography | Lian Zi, some photos provided by The Ritz-Carlton, Nanjing
Original work is not easy; reprinting without permission is strictly prohibited.
