“We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen” so says Gadi Hassin a hotel General Manager well used to Israel’s high end hospitality vagaries we have all come to reluctantly accept; construction not quite finished off properly, landscaping with the odd bit of piping sticking out and service lacking a simple smile or two.

The 30-room Brown Hotel opened in late 2010 as Israel’s only member of Design Hotels and remains the hippest of Tel Aviv’s boutique hostelries.