Tjuvholmen is one of Oslo’s new arts districts and, as one might expect, The Thief has its own art curator who oversees the more than 100 art pieces displayed inside and outside the property, including an original Andy Warhol print in the hotel’s Fru K restaurant and Jeff Koons’ balloon animal sculpture. When I checked in at the hotel’s reception desk I looked up at Richard Prince’s huge ink jet on canvas work “Cowboy – The Horse Thief” that covered an entire wall of the lobby. The hotel maintains a working relationship with the Astrup Fearnley Museum next door, and all that priceless, borrowed art in the guestrooms and public spaces is a great perk for guests.

The 119-room property, opened in 2013, is a member of Design Hotels, and the entire building, and almost every object inside, is a feast for the eyes. This includes even the common elements, like the perfect round holes that act as handles on the translucent bathroom doors; the adorable glass yogurt cups on the breakfast buffet; and the narrow, rectangular swim-up window at the Thief Spa, where you can float in a heated pool listening to Reiki Zen meditation music while peeking outside at pedestrians trudging along the snow-covered Norwegian landscape in parkas and woolen ski hats.

The large windows in my room faced the Oslo Fjord and the Renzo Piano-designed Astrup Fearnley. There were two flexible reading lights, one on each side of the headboard, and a stunning lamp on each end table. A shelf held large-sized picture books about Norwegian art and architecture; the 42-inch Philips plasma HDTV offered channels from Norway, the United States and Europe; and the complimentary WiFi was fast and reliable.

A solid pocket door separated the white and brown marble bathroom from the guestroom, and sensors turned on the recessed mood lighting as soon as I entered the bathroom. A price guide to the bath amenities listed the thick, fluffy Maggie Wonka-designed bathrobe hanging on the door at 1,500 Norwegian krone, about $177; or one can purchase a tube of Marvis, the Italian-designed toothpaste, for $7. Even the little white boxes hanging on a bathroom wall where glasses are stored were imaginatively designed.

The hotel’s fine-dining Fru K restaurant serves three meals daily, has its own meeting room, a private bar area, outdoor patio and a lunch and dinner menu that rivals any in Europe. Depending on the season, some of its Norwegian cuisine includes cod from Lofoten in the far north, quail eggs from Toten located north of Oslo, langoustine caught by trawlers off Norway’s west coast and delivered live, and reindeer ribeye steaks from the Nordas region near Bergen.

The Thief

Landgangen 1
N-0252 Oslo
Norway
tel 0047 24 00 40 00