Capella Hanoi is the most deliberately theatrical hotel in the city. Bill Bensley designed it as though a 1920s opera company had lived in the building for a century and never thrown anything away – portraits stacked along the corridors, velvet, sheet music, costume trunks used as furniture. It sits in the French Quarter within sight of the Hanoi Opera House.
Behind the staging it is a genuinely comfortable small hotel, and the location is the practical argument for it: Hoan Kiem Lake, the Old Quarter and the main museums are all within a short walk, which matters in a city best seen on foot.