W Sydney

W Sydney opened at Darling Harbour in October 2023 inside The Ribbon, a new tower built on the site of the city's former IMAX cinema. At 588 rooms it is billed as the largest W hotel in Marriott's global portfolio, anchored by the restaurant BTWN, a Janice Wong dessert bar, and a rooftop infinity pool.

The place

W Sydney occupies 31-33 Wheat Road at Darling Harbour, anchoring a new building called The Ribbon that rises where the standalone Sydney IMAX cinema — once home to one of the world's largest screens — stood until 2016. The hotel is the centerpiece of a broader precinct redevelopment tying together Darling Harbour's casino, convention and waterfront zones, with the rebuilt IMAX cinema reinstated at the base of the tower.

The concept

The Ribbon was designed by Hassell and had a difficult path to completion: construction started in 2017, was meant to finish by 2020, and instead ran through the insolvency of two successive builders, Grocon and Probuild, before Multiplex saw it through. What opened in October 2023 is a 588-room hotel that Marriott bills as the largest W in its global portfolio — a scale that sets it apart from the boutique-sized W properties the brand is generally associated with, and a reversal of sorts for a brand that closed its original, much smaller Woolloomooloo property (now Ovolo Woolloomooloo) years earlier. The rooms and suites face either Darling Harbour or the CBD skyline, and the building carries roughly 1,300 square meters of event space aimed at Sydney's convention and corporate market as much as at leisure travelers.

Dining & wellness

BTWN, the hotel's flagship restaurant, takes its name from the tower's position wedged between two expressways, with chef Chris Dodd — previously of Aria and Blue Door — running the kitchen; inside it sits 2AM, a dessert bar from Singaporean pastry chef Janice Wong, her first permanent venue in Australia. The Living Room serves as the hotel's day-to-night lobby bar, while 29/30, a double-level bar spanning the top two floors, and a rooftop Wet Deck infinity pool overlooking the harbour handle the higher-altitude drinking and lounging. A spa rounds out the wellness offer.