By Jeff Silverstein
Canada’s first hotel room designed exclusively for sex has just opened its doors and you’ll never guess where it is.
After many months in the making, the Hotel Zed in Victoria, B.C. has just put the finishing touches on its room dubbed The Love Nest and it signals a shift not only in our attitudes toward sexuality, but in the energy and vibe of Victoria itself.
Long seen as a sleepy retirement town with picture perfect postcard views, manicured lawns and afternoon tea, Victoria has finally got some serious mojo, and The Love Nest is a celebration and manifestation of this new energy.
“Victoria always had this wonderfully cheeky undercurrent to it,” says Mandy Farmer, CEO of Hotel Zed. “Yes, it’s beautiful and charming and known for gardens and tea, but there’s also this really vibrant, creative, progressive community here that’s grown so much over the last decade.”
Indeed, over the last number of years, an incredibly dynamic food scene has emerged, as has a thriving wellness and arts scene, not to mention a bolder nightlife scene and vibrant queer culture.
“People aren’t just visiting Victoria for a quiet getaway anymore; they’re looking for memorable experiences and spaces that feel authentic, playful and a little bit unexpected,” says Farmer.
Cue The Love Nest, and like so many things, timing is everything.
“For me, the timing feels perfect because people are craving real connection more than ever right now!” says Farmer. “I wanted to create an oasis of sex positivity; a safe space where you’re allowed to celebrate sensuality and explore what excites you. It’s not just about building a room for better sex. It’s a room built for better intimacy where you’ve got a chance to be vulnerable and explore.”
If anyone in the industry was going to pull this off, it was going to be Mandy Farmer. She has been a pioneer and a bit of a rebel in the hospitality world her whole career, pushing boundaries with her people-first management approach.
Before The Love Nest even started to take shape, Farmer spent the better part of 10 years writing business plans for her retro-themed hotels before finally getting buy-in.
What started out as an idea that many dismissed – retro, playful, personality driven hotels -has grown into a successful brand with three Hotel Zeds now in B.C. including Tofino, showing that the idea was not just outside the box but scalable.
That same persistence and willingness to take risks is how The Love Nest was born. “I’ve been dreaming of The Love Nest for years, and I’m inspired by an unspoken truth that sex in hotel rooms is better than sex at home…As a hotelier, I think it’s imperative that we continuously enhance our guest experience. If folks really prefer hotel sex, what if we designed an experience for our guests that can make hotel sex even more awesome.”
It’s still early days but The Love Nest has quickly become a destination experience. The hotel had nearly 2,000 people sign up for the pre-sale list, and since opening it has been consistently booked with weekends selling out and steady demand across the week.
And it isn’t just visitors booking the room. It’s locals, couples, people in different kinds of relationships, and people exploring something new.
When we arrived at the hotel, the retro vibe was on full display. The front desk staff were incredibly friendly, gave us a knowing smile, and a heads up about the “intimacy kit” inside the room that contains vibrators, lube, restraints and other accessories available for purchase.
When we finally opened the door to our suite, it felt like we were stepping onto the set of Boogie Nights, the Hollywood film that explores the 1970s “golden age” of adult film. There’s no shock value here – just a welcoming, sensual space where guests can explore and celebrate intimacy in whatever way feels right.
Equal parts cheeky and curated, it’s really meant to be a room where you’ve got a chance to be vulnerable, a bit mischievous and most importantly have fun. And it’s all about the details.
There’s the requisite cocktail bar and several other playful touches including a tantric chaise, different grab bars strategically located throughout, a fully washable velvet Playpen Sofa, a high-grade sex swing and right in the middle of the room a dancing pole.
A fully mirrored wall is even discreetly hidden behind soft velvet curtains, and a spacious bathroom is kitted out as a wet room with peekaboo windows.
A custom grab bar on the headboard has been added for good measure and a curated library packed with old editions of Playboy magazine and books about tantric sex and other “inspirational resources” are there to help anyone looking to deepen their understanding of intimacy.
“The room is designed to be self-service, because nobody wants to call the front desk and ask how to use a sex swing,” says Farmer. “Shame isn’t invited into The Love Nest, so we created a retro-inspired menu that explains everything clearly, and we let guests decide when they want housekeeping so they’re never interrupted at the wrong moment.”
The room isn’t just a little naughty and fun, but it’s part of a broader cultural shift not only toward sexuality, but also to Victoria’s hospitality scene that has been steadily shedding its prim image in favor of something more expressive and experiential.
After a night of exploration, we decided to embrace one of the city’s Nordic spas. Like so many cities, the wellness scene has exploded in Victoria with several hydrotherapy and traditional sauna spots popping up.
Hot and cold therapy is booming and so we headed to RITUAL Nordic Spa located in the heart of downtown. This urban sauna house was inspired by traditional Finnish and Scandinavian bathhouses. It features traditional cedar and basswood saunas, infrared heat, a eucalyptus steam room, a cold plunge pool, Nordic bucket showers, and an outdoor snow station. You can book the 2-hour Nordic Circuit which we did or a private suite.
HAVN Saunas is another spot. This floating spa was built on a restored WWII barge in Victoria’s Inner Harbour and offers an outdoor hydrotherapy circuit with hot tubs, cold plunge pools, three saunas, and an exfoliation salt scrub station.
Ærth Saunas is another spot tucked away in a hidden corner of downtown this has repurposed an unused alleyway for an affordable healing space that is the city’s first open air Nordic inspired sauna village.
As for Victoria’s vibrant food scene, there are too many spots to mention here but there are two standouts – Marilena Café + Raw Bar, a polished, seafood-forward restaurant that is quickly becoming one of the most celebrated culinary destinations in Canada, and Café Malabar, a waterfront hotspot serving outstanding South Indian cuisine from the Kerala region of India.
Café Malabar’s co chefs and co-owners, Kiran Kolathodan and Karma Tenpa, combine global culinary training with fresh West Coast ingredients. This is a place that we keep returning to time and time again. The vibrant Keralan flavours feature West Coast seafood and island produce. Signature dishes include the slow-cooked spicy fish curry, the Kerala Fried Chicken, and flaky Kerala Parotta – a rich and buttery layered flatbread that tastes like naan bread meets croissant it’s so flaky.
When I caught up with Chef Kiran, he told me that cooking was in his DNA. “We grew up in a family where food was always at the centre of things. With mom and dad being cooks they were always cooking and Kerala was our regional cuisine. It’s a cliché that all Indians are either meant to be a doctor or engineer, but after my schooling, I decided to join IHM Kovalam, the only government run culinary school in Kerala which caused a bit of a stir.”
This spot is fast becoming a darling of the city’s food scene and if you haven’t tried this regional cuisine but love Indian, it’s a must. The cuisine dates to 3000 BC and is tied to the dawn of the global spice trade when Persian traders travelled down to Kerala’s Malabar Coast. The key spices are the big three – black pepper, green cardamom and turmeric.
Specific regional aromatics help give it this incredible brightness. Unlike the heavy, fiery chili blends of Northern India, spices like green peppercorns, lemongrass, and mango leaves help give it a flavour profile that leans more to sweet depth and intense warmth. Throw in lots of open fire cooking and other techniques like wrapping halibut in banana leaves, Chef Kiran says it resembles some elements of Polynesian and even Mexican cooking.
All the fish is sourced locally – the mussels and clams are from Salt Spring and the salmon and crab from Tofino. And for mushrooms, Chef Kiran works with West Coast Mycology, a small, family-owned gourmet mushroom farm on Vancouver Island.
Over at Marilena Café + Raw Bar, Executive Chef Kristian Eligh leads the high-profile culinary team.
Chef Kristian is a Victoria native who returned home after building an impressive résumé in several top kitchens, including Jean-Georges, The French Laundry, Blackbird, and the Hawksworth Restaurant Group in Vancouver.
The focus here is on local, seasonal ingredients with global influence in a luxe setting that feels modern yet approachable.
Opened in 2023 as Toptable Group’s first restaurant in Victoria, it brings a big-city hospitality vibe to the capital that has helped to raise the bar in Victoria’s dining scene.
“We strive for simplicity first and foremost,” says Chef Kristian. “Showing off the integrity of the ingredients and creating flavour combinations that best compliment the star of the plate. Sourcing and procuring the very best products we can is where things begin.”
We had a number of standout dishes, but the sashimi, seared diver scallops and crispy lobster tacos really stole the show.
After a very grown-up weekend in Victoria, I left with a different impression of the city. It’s still a wonderfully quiet getaway. But this is a place that is no longer stuck in the past. Instead, it is a more dynamic city willing to embrace rebels, creatives, and curious people who are open to trying something different. And because of that newfound energy, The Love Nest felt like a natural fit.
Hotel Zed
3110 Douglas St
Victoria, BC V8Z 3K4
250-388-4345
Café Malabar
100-407 Swift Street
Victoria, BC V8W 1S2
778-584-7072
Marilena Café + Raw Bar
1525 Douglas St
Victoria, BC V8W 1P6
778-405-5200
RITUAL Nordic Spa
989 Johnson St, #101
Victoria, BC V8V 0E3
778-440-9009
