By Charly SHELTON

I’ve stayed in one and two-star motel rooms off the highway. I’ve stayed in three-star upscale motels and moderate hotels. I’ve stayed in four-star hotels most frequently, the lavish but not opulent hotels that make you feel like you’re really on vacation. I’ve stayed in five-star hotels that go above and beyond to make every little thing just that much better and really drive home that opulence. And now I’ve stayed in a six-star hotel, as General Manager Sebastian Stacey calls it, at The Clement Hotel in Palo Alto. Personally, I hesitate to admit that this is a six-star hotel because I feel it should be in a class of its own. Of all the hotels in all the countries I’ve stayed in over the years, I have never encountered an experience quite like the one at The Clement.

The Clement invited me up for an evening to see what it has to offer. I brought my best friend and we headed up to Palo Alto, near Stanford University, for a guys’ weekend. Upon arrival, our car was valeted, our luggage whisked off to our suite and we met our personal concierge, Gail. She took care of everything we needed for the entire stay and even anticipated our needs before we knew them. We were given a tour of the 23-room hotel that is only as big as it needs to be. The living room and dining room are bright yet intimate, with a fireplace at one end and an outdoor terrace at the other. The dining room is just off the open kitchen where the chef stands, preparing anything we may wish to order. The hotel stay is all-inclusive, so we never have to think about what anything costs but rather what we are in the mood for at the moment. All around the chef’s stove island, cabinets and refrigerators stand fully stocked and open to guests at any time, and they’re welcome to “help themselves.” It was likened to staying at a friend’s house where you can make yourself at home, and the concierge and staff have the same zeal for making their guests feel welcome as one would if friends or relatives came to stay.

When we reached our suite, we found the living room area with pull-out couch and chairs arranged toward a 65” Samsung TV and the bedroom with a California king bed, another 65” TV and a balcony overlooking the entryway and out toward the tree-lined Stanford University across the street. The bathroom had heated stone floors, a standing tub, a glass-walled shower and a TV built into the mirror. Any child of the ’80s or ’90s knows a TV in the mirror means the future has arrived.

We headed down for dinner in the dining room where options included foie gras torchon, ahi poke nachos, beef carpaccio, gazpacho, seafood linguine and grilled steaks with a large selection of steak butters. We opted for the seared scallop with pineapple-ginger salsa, the Spanish braised octopus with grilled Bilbao chorizo, roasted potatoes and garlic chips, and the homemade olive tapenade, chicken liver mousse and Black Forest rye toast. And that was just for appetizers.

The seared scallops were fantastic and the olive tapenade could be eaten with a spoon, no toast required. We then enjoyed entrees of ribeye steak and rack of lamb before refilling our cocktails and heading to the roof to relax in the pool and hot tub under the meteor shower, which happened to be in play that evening.

Manager Stacey came up to check on us to see if there was anything else we needed and shared a friendly chat for a while, telling us more about himself, the hotel and its founder, Clement Chen III. We whiled away the evening and then had a second dinner because, hey, it’s all-inclusive. We finished off our night with a local delicacy – Tin Pot ice cream, probably the best ice cream and sorbet I’ve ever had. I can see why the Tin Pot ice cream shop regularly has a line out the door, as Gail told us.

The Clement Hotel is the very last word in luxury. It goes above and beyond what other hotels do because, rather than having what many guests want overall, it has the personal touch ensuring each individual guest gets everything wanted personally – and provides a few things guests didn’t even realize they yet wanted.

My sincere thanks to Gail, Sebastian and everyone else who helped to make our stay not only pleasant for the time I was there, but also for showing how a hotel stay should be when it’s done absolutely right.

For more information about The Clement Hotel in Palo Alto, visit TheClementPaloAlto.com.

  Charly Shelton