A seafront hotel is set to be transformed into one of Sussex's hippest haunts.

The Amalfi Hotel in Brighton will be stripped of its dusty grandeur and reinvented as an exclusive new boutique-style hotel.

The Augustus Hotel Group, which owns the New Madeira Hotel and the Funky Fish Club, wants to turn the Grade II-listed building into a glamourous 22-room hotel.

Under the working title Project 43, every room in the five-star hotel will be different but there will be an overall Asian theme.

The new-look hotel is expected to open on August 1.

The most expensive rooms, which will have plasma televisions and the world's most expensive beds, will cost up to £300 per night.

Customers will be offered a free drink when they arrive at the hotel and will receive free room service during their stay.

While the idea is to provide a small-scale, homely service, similar projects in London have already become popular with celebrities.

Neil Waugh, managing director of Augustus, said: "It will be exclusive and glamorous but still accessible.

"We don't want to cater just for people on £1 million budgets. One of the more basic rooms will cost in the region of £80 on a Sunday night."

The owners of The Gingerman Restaurant, in Norfolk Square, Brighton, have been approached about opening a restaurant inside the hotel.

Chef Ben McKeller said: "The idea is to get away from the grand hotel design and make good hotels more accessible but The Gingerman is still in negotiations at this stage."

The Gingerman was voted the best-value restaurant in the city in 2001 by Harden's Restaurant Guide. The eatery was the only place in the city to receive the maximum two stars based on the reports of 10,000 diners.

Boutique-style hotels have opened in most of the world's major cities during the past few years and are seen as an antidote to large chain hotels.

Tuesday March 25 2003