What makes a great bathroom?

"The white porcelain bathroom sink looked beautiful.

"I wanted a shave but couldn't fill it with water: the plug wouldn't work. The housekeeper came and fiddled around, but to no avail.

"She said she'd have to consult engineering. A few minutes later, she called to say none of the plugs in the hotel bathrooms worked. They weren't designed to."

This was a review of one of London's hippest hotels in London's Evening Standard a couple of years ago. The writer, incidentally, went on to extol the virtues of the hotel, but the point about the bathroom is well made: looking good just isn't enough.

"I think bathrooms are fantastically important in hotels," says Hotel du Vin managing director Robin Hutson. He's a man who knows a thing or two about bathrooms. Those in his six hotels are designed in the same slick, minimalist way, but with a touch of luxury that has earned them the label "destination bathrooms". These are places people want to spend time in. Showers are powerful, towels are thick, bathtubs are deep. Where he has the space to go further, he does. Some rooms have twin tubs with space for Champagne in between. How thoughtful! Others have "party" showers that could take 12 people, if 12 people had the urge.

"Not enough hotels give bathrooms sufficient importance," Hutson says. "I stay all over the place and inevitably end up in hotels where the bathroom is somewhere you don't want to be - trickly showers, nasty fittings, and a grubby feel. Often they are small, functional places. In today's style-conscious age, bathrooms can be places that can enhance your stay."

So what makes a good bathroom? "They should make you feel like you're the first person to have gone in there," Hutson says. "They should feel clean, not shabby. A bathroom is an intimate place."

Hutson's latest opening, in Harrogate, has one guest room with a vast 25sq ft bathroom. "It's open plan," he explains, "with a separate loo. It's a nice feature, but not very British It has two freestanding baths and a ridiculous-sized shower. It just feels luxurious." The dustbin-lid shower uses a gushing 40 litres of water a minute.

"We have so many requests from guests asking where they can get the same fittings, or a plumber who can give them the power."

For the record, most of the fittings are from London supplier Aston-Matthews. And the cost? Hutson says it's the marble and granite in a bathroom that bumps up the cost, along with the behind-the-scenes drainage and extractor units. He expects to spend about £5,000 a room on the fittings. "We try hard to achieve a certain look for sensible money."

Henry Wong's top 10 pet hates…

1. Poor water pressure and/or temperature fluctuations in the shower.
2. Insufficient water pressure.
3. Sudden change in water temperature.
4. Low-flow shower heads that either spray too hard or don't get you wet.
5. Illegible shower controls. Few people have a shower with their glasses on.
6. Toilet does not flush well.
7. Excessive "fancy" tub/shower taps that are not intuitively easy to work.
8. Toilet seats won't stay up.
9. Mirrors that fog up.
10. Lack of counter space for spreading out toiletries and cosmetics.

Annoying things about hotel bathrooms

Henry Wong is a Canadian-based hotel architect with strong views on hotel bathrooms. "The bathroom is more important than the room itself," he says. "Guests judge how much the room is worth by the level of design and luxury of the bathroom. They also judge the cleanliness of the room and the entire hotel by the cleanliness of the bathroom."