Rosewood Phnom Penh Feels Like An Exhale

Skyscrapers. Subtlety. Serenity. Three words that rarely go together. Only the 175-room Rosewood Phnom Penh casually connects them all. The hotel, which occupies the top 14-floors of the dragon-shaped Vattanac Capital Tower, is a haven of calm and contemplation. Even the architecture itself relaxes as it rises – the windows tilt inwards with the building’s increasingly dramatic slope on its higher floors – and it feels like an exhale.

From the windows of Rosewood Phnom Penh’s sky lobby on level 35 (the lift button reads ROSEWOOD in all capitals – a rare break in its otherwise impeccable restraint) the railway line pounds out towards Battambang and Poipet, and in the other direction traffic clogs over the Chroy Changvar Bridge.

It looks like the opening hours of a game of Sim City being played out on widescreen. There’s the convergence of the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers, terracotta rooftops, colonial villas, and the constant hum of scooters below. 

Up here, it’s silent. 

Transmissions By VuTheara Kham At Rosewood Phnom Penh’s Art Gallery

Well, not entirely, because photographer VuTheara Kham, floppy fringed and buttoned up, is clearing his throat a little nervously, before leading guests on a tour of his photo exhibition ‘Transmissions,’ currently on show on Rosewood Phnom Penh’s 35th floor Art Gallery. Born in Normandy, to Cambodian parents – they opened a Cambodian restaurant there, called ‘Angkor Watt’ not long after – he first began taking photographs, he explains, on his iPhone 4S. 

The actual phone is there on display, resting on a tiny artist’s easel in a glass cabinet. Above it is a photo of VuTheara, just a few years old, with his mom, in front of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy. The famous island becomes completely cut off from the mainland as the spring tide rushes in to flood the surrounding bay.

A Lesser Seen Side Of Cambodia 

VuTheara says he likes to capture a lesser-seen side of his Cambodia. The one he’s come to know on infrequent visits back. There are photographs where he tackles cliched images of Cambodia – a shot of the Bayoun Temple in Siem Reap, disrupted by a stone thrown into the pond in front of it, and two monks carrying umbrellas in the early morning light in Phnom Penh.

Then, there are images full of geometric shapes and a restricted three-color palette, that you have to squint at to place the location, like skateboarders around Morodok Stadium. And there’s a girl cleaning the windows of a convenience store somewhere in the city viewed through the suds.

Rosewood Phnom Penh feels cut off as well, while similarly only hinting at its location. There’s the French-colonial slatted doors behind the TV and gold Khmer stitching of the pillows on the immersive sofa beside the window.

The Basquiat-paints-a-buffalo artwork above the bed is propped on a bigger image of a print of an Angkor urn. Coffee table books are piled everywhere – ones full of mystery and obscure meaning that echo Cambodia’s complex history, when French influence transformed the landscape while local traditions persisted in the shadows. Meanwhile, Khmer-patterned blinds in the fitness center throw dappled sunlight across the 33rd-floor pool.

Reflection Rather Than Spectacle At Rosewood Phnom Penh

Up in the sky lobby, Burmese painter Htien Lin’s ‘The Bustle Phnom Penh’ doesn’t just hang on the wall – it positively vibrates. Across its square canvas outside meets inside as monuments, traffic and street life collide in primary colors and deliberate naivety. The city’s chaos becomes calculated composition, offering guests another glimpse of the frenzy thirty-five floors below.

Throughout Rosewood Phnom Penh is an art collection that could belong to a well-traveled gallerist with exceptional taste – contemporary wire sculptures of Hanuman watch over guests in the lobby, while carefully curated pieces create moments of reflection rather than spectacle. 

Rosewood Phnom Penh Has ‘A Sense Of Place’

This isn’t art for art’s sake. It’s art with purpose – each piece strategically selected to reinforce Rosewood’s ‘A Sense of Place’ philosophy while giving guests something to talk about besides the view. Lots of them – like the Rosewood itself — lure you, just for a second, into thinking they’re traditional, like Chan Daly’s wood carving mural by the entrance that takes traditional motifs and turns them into something new.

Navigating the art collection feels like a private gallery tour minus the opening night crowds. The 35th floor sky lobby strategically places screens and dividers that create privacy rather than community. You’ll find yourself surprised to hear a resounding “good morning” from reception as you head to breakfast, having forgotten it existed in its discreet positioning. In fact, most guests won’t even see the front desk until departure, as staff efficiently handle in-room check-in from those sofas by the suites’ window.

There’s art on the way there too, colorful vases that look like classic Khmer columns and by the elevators two primitive tin sentinels that look like Zaouli dancers. 

Introducing Rosewood Phnom Penh’s Five Restaurants And Bars

Where guests do mingle is in Rosewood Phnom Penh’s five restaurants and bars. They range from French comfort food and breakfast spot, Brasserie Louis, to izakaya-style Japanese at Iza, attracting suited executives and stylish locals alike while maintaining an atmosphere of relaxed sophistication. At the top perches Sora Sky Bar with its cantilevered terrace and panoramic views, while inside there’s a smoking room as Whisky Library co-signed by Nikka.

Back in the room, there’s something charmingly analog about a hotel that still slides notes under your door in an age of push notifications. But, just as you fall into a nostalgic reverie at these moments, you realize that modern innovations drive the experience. For example, there’s  no key card that you have to slide annoyingly into the slot to put the power on. Instead, the room figures it out, and the blinds dutifully roll up each time you enter. 

Like everything else at Rosewood Phnom Penh, it’s a thoughtful detail that feels both carefully considered and completely effortless. In a city rapidly transforming between tradition and modernity, this hotel has found the exact coordinates where luxury doesn’t shout, it whispers – and somehow makes itself heard clearly above the urban swirl below.

Seduced By Rosewood Phnom Penh’s Self-Contained Eco-System

So, the gravitational pull of Rosewood Phnom Penh presents a genuine travel hazard. First-time visitors to Cambodia’s capital might arrive with good intentions to explore the city’s temples, markets, and museums, only to find themselves seduced by the hotel’s self-contained ecosystem. Between morning laps in the 33rd-floor pool, afternoon contemplation of VuTheara’s photography, sundowners at Sora Sky Bar, and dinner circuits through the Rosewood’s restaurants, days evaporate without ever touching ground level. And it feels like an exhale.