Hotel Mestari

I was in Helsinki with my partner over Christmas '23 visiting family and looking forward to a cosy retreat. Looking at the Mestari description online I thought I found a nice new boutique hotel in central Helsinki with a sauna. I was mistaken. What I found was a poorly designed and executed conference hotel with some extremely questionable theming and almost comically disengaged staff. The restaurant is a Finnish / Latin concept ... no one has ever asked for this and they shouldn't because its clearly a very bad idea in this case executed very badly. Lingonberry BBQ sauce ???. Also deeply expensive even for Helsinki. The theme of the hotel is "master builders" so they use the 1932 picture of workmen sitting on a steel girder in New York repeatedly ad nassuem everywhere. Its stupid irrelevant childish and overused. Industrial chic is hard to pull off, Mestari didnt. There were categorically no master builders used in the building of this interior. The hotel is clearly run on a budget, everything is cheap and there are very few amenities, when I tried to get the TV in our room fixed twice I was met with incredulity and absolutely no apology or attempt to fix it. The worst though, the motivation for my rant and the thing that I couldn't get over was the sauna. Sauna is of course a cultural necessity in Finland and very welcome in -17. The sauna at Mestari costs SEVENTY FIVE EUROS. Utter madness. This place is a crap rip off, go anywhere else

We had a room called Engineer Loft King Room. It is as high as two normal rooms. We had two stories high windows with courtyard view, a red brick wall and a loft above our bed. Armchairs were located in the loft. It was a nice place to read, have a drink, eat popcorns (included in the room price) or just relax. However, it wasn't possible to watch the TV there because the television was located downstairs next to the bed. Notice also that stairs to the loft are quite deep and not suitable for small children. Our bathroom was one of the best ever. We had a bathtub and a separate shower with several functions (normal shower, rain shower, massaging shower). The bathtub and the shower were separated by a glass wall from another bathroom area. Not a drop of water spilled outside the showering area. Air conditioning was self adjustable and very effective. The hotel is new and modern and the location is excellent. Breakfast was very good. Also some specialties were available, e.g. churros, smoothies and home made iced tea. You may also ask gluten free options. This hotel and especially this special room was a perfect choice for our mini vacation in Helsinki.