No two of our rooms are identical. Some are furnished in a classic, traditional style, while others have a more contemporary look. In an era when constant change is a fact of life, we must have a general policy that is guided by a sure sense of style and taste. Only then can we achieve a harmonious level of continuity. Hotel Continental has a total of 155 hotel rooms, 21 of which are suites, 73 double and double deluxe rooms, and 61 single rooms. Every room has a broadband Internet connection. Please note that all hotelrooms are no-smoking.
At Continental we do not follow the restless pace of trends, but rather try to identify the essence of a style that will withstand the test of time. What is most important, however, is that our guests feel that they are well cared for. Whether the purpose of their visit is business or pleasure, we want our guests to remember their stay with satisfaction. Taking our guests' needs into consideration is the very core of our existence.
No two guests have exactly the same expectations for a stay at a hotel. And for that reason no two of our rooms are exactly alike; they are as varied as are our guests' expectations. If you want peace and quiet during your stay you can reserve a room with windows facing our tranquil courtyard. Our other rooms have views of the harbour and the Oslo fjord, the Royal Palace or the National Theatre. Our best suites and the rest of our rooms have something in common: they all reflect the spirit of care and consideration that reigns in the hotel.
The Continental Suite The Continental Suite is our largest and most exclusive suite, situated on the top floor and covering approximately 100 square metres. It has a stately lounge with an elegant sofa and classic dining furniture. The suite has two adjoining, but separate, bedrooms. You can enjoy your breakfast on the spacious balcony with its view of the harbour and the Oslo fjord.
The Abel Suite Hotel Continental collaborates with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and we have named one of our corner suites “The Abel Suite” after the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel. In connection with an annual prize for outstanding work in the field of mathematics, which is awarded by King Harald V, the prize-winner always stays in this suite. This is why Continental is regarded as the official Abel hotel. Although the suite is named after a mathematician, even people who are not gifted with numbers will find it a pleasant place to stay. The suite has a fashionable English interior and a superb view towards the harbour and the Oslo fjord. During the week when the prize is awarded, Theatercaféen honours Niels Henrik Abel with an “Abel cake”. This is a rich chocolate cake with black currant purée and nut meringues. Of course the recipe, which was formulated by our best pastry chefs, is a secret.
The Royal Suite We can offer the perfect accommodation for any occasion. In the Royal Suite you can pamper yourself with luxury worthy of royalty. The suite received its name when it was re-decorated in connection with a visit by Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Royal Suite also has a majestic view towards the Royal Palace. The Royal Suite is elegantly decorated with a hint of romance. It provides a lovely setting for the ideal conclusion of a successful wedding celebration, or for people who want to arrange a romantic break in their everyday lives.
Junior suites Our Junior Suites are exclusive rooms with elegant interiors. Junior Suites are available with or without a balcony, at the corner of the building or along the corridor, with one bedroom or with two rooms divided by a sliding door. Hotel Continental covers an entire city block, and you can choose between magnificent views towards the Royal Palace, the Storting (parliament) and the National Theatre, or towards the harbour and the Oslo fjord. If you would like a particularly quiet atmosphere during your stay, we also have rooms with windows facing our peaceful courtyard.
A CULTURAL INFUSION Hotel Continental is situated just across the street from the National Theatre, our neighbour for over 100 years. The National Theatre presents plays of the highest quality, and we are pleased to be able to offer our guests a combination of entertainment, excellent food with or without accommodation. The dinner can be enjoyed at Theatercaféen or Annen Etage, and accommodation can be arranged in every category of room or suite. The rates will vary according to the room and restaurant you choose. With fine dining and first-class entertainment, you will have a splendid night on the town. Most performances start at 7.30pm. We recommend an early dinner before the short walk to a pleasant theatre experience. After the play, Hotel Continental has even more to offer. Perhaps a drink in our Dagligstuen lobby bar, or in one of our pubs: Foxx, Steamen or Annen Etage Bar. Make your reservations by calling/e-mailing the booking desk at Hotel Continental. Your tickets will be waiting for you at the front desk when you arrive.
Weddings As a romantic ending to your solemn occasion we have a special offer for newlyweds: a night in one of our romantic suites, where we will welcome you with Champagne, fruit and roses. The next morning we will serve you breakfast in your room, and late checkout is a matter of course. At Hotel Continental we know how to arrange an unforgettable conclusion to your wedding celebration. We can also arrange your wedding dinner in our banqueting department. We consider it our top priority to make this the crowning event of a day filled with highlights.
Room service Sometimes it is pleasant to just relax in your room and have some time on your own. If you get hungry we can serve you a warm or cold meal - and a refreshing drink - in your room. We can offer 24-hour room service every day. However, the menu is limited after 11.00 pm.
Restaurants Hotel Continental is an extroverted enterprise, an open and generous hotel and a lively restaurant house that are the pride of the city. The kitchen represents the heart of this house. Outstanding chefs and ambitious apprentices contribute every single day to our cuisine, which is a continuous source of inspirations and renewal - to the delight of our guests as well as to ourselves.
Theatercafeen Exuberant and bustling, lively and unique. Part of Norwegian cultural history and an absolute must for every visitor to Oslo. Our legendary Vienna-style café is featured on the New York Times list of the world's ten most famous cafés, and has indisputably been the city's most popular dining and meeting place for over 100 years. Theatercaféen satisfies a secret craving to be surrounded by opulence. Although you feel absolutely welcome there, you never feel so much at home that you forget where you are. And you enjoy it to the utmost! This is the stuff that the great European cafés are made of. And this is what constitutes the irresistible magic of Theatercaféen.
Annen Etage The latest addition to Hotel Continental, Restaurant Eik Annen Etage. A fine dining restaurant in exiting, bold and innovative surroundings. Each week we offer a different five course menu of international cuisine based on Norwegian ingredients. Our highly skilled staff will contribute to and ensure an unforgetable dining experience.
Dagligstuen Dagligstuen is our lobby bar, the place to relax after your arrival at the hotel. You can enjoy one of the chef's many specialities or choose from a selection of sandwiches. Although it is quiet and subdued, it has a vibrant undertone. You can enjoy a cocktail while doing some serious people-watching. In this large yet intimate bar there is always something to catch your attention. Not to mention someone. And hanging on the walls are photographs of our large collection of prints by famous Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, for the enjoyment and edification of anyone who wants to see them. This has been a famous and popular meeting place since the 1930s. In Dagligstuen we can also offer a wireless broadband Internet connection.
Caroline At Continental we want to ease our guests gently into a new day. Our breakfast restaurant Caroline offers you a comprehensive buffet, subdued music and comfortable surroundings. If you are an early bird we serve a simple breakfast in the lobby starting at 05.00 am.
Steamen Steamen is our sidewalk café in Olav V's gate with a maritime atmosphere. This is a place for a quick visit to enjoy a delicious snack or a refreshing beverage to warm you up - or cool you down. We open the large panorama windows facing the sidewalk from early spring to late autumn. We also put out tables and enlarge the seating capacity outside during the summer months, to the great delight of everyone who likes to see and be seen.
Foxx Foxx is an informal and trendy sidewalk café and bar serving light meals that can be enjoyed inside the café or as takeaway. You are welcome to bring your laptop and use the wireless broadband. Foxx can be booked for private parties by prior arrangement. The venue is perfect for a product release or a kick-off with colleagues or business partners. There is a seating capacity of 50 inside, but up to 70 people can be accommodated at a reception. During the summer we place tables and chairs outside on the sidewalk, making it a large outdoor café.
Banquets IN THE BEST OF HANDS... With exquisite style and taste, Hotel Continental's banqueting service creates the perfect setting for a private party. Special attention is given to the overall effect as well as to details, ensuring a memorable experience, whether your event is a stately banquet for a large number of guests or a cosy gathering for a chosen few. New ideas are often born of experience, and Continental has been gaining experience and developing ideas for 100 years. All our assembly halls are situated in a row. This makes them extremely flexible, since the doors can be open or shut in order to alter the size of the hall according to your needs. Our headwaiters will be pleased to recommend menus and wine, flower decorations, music and entertainment. We tailor every arrangement to your wishes and needs. Our goal is to give both hosts and guests the feeling of being in the best of hands. And when the event is over - a wonderful memory.
Conferences Hotel Continental's conference centre is designed to ensure uninterrupted work in comfortable and stimulating surroundings. We have nine meeting rooms on two floors, amounting to 600 square metres that can be adapted to the needs of 2 to 40 people. We want our guests to be able to work constructively during their meetings, so we have accentuated light, fresh air and sound insulation in the meeting rooms. Total discretion can also be arranged if necessary. All of the meeting rooms are located near a lobby where you can stretch your legs, enjoy a cup of coffee and take a break from the discussions. Meals can be enjoyed undisturbed in the meeting room or in secluded banqueting rooms, unless you prefer the more open atmosphere of our restaurants. If you need Internet access, we can offer wireless broadband connections in all our conference rooms. We can also offer streaming conferences. Our conference centre has all the technical and audiovisual facilities that a discriminating guest or conference host would expect. An added attraction is, of course, Hotel Continental's distinctive atmosphere.
Meeting room 1 Meeting room 1 is our largest individual meeting room in the conference department. Every technical and audiovisual requirement a guest or host expects is available here. In order to ensure the most effective use of our guests' time, we have made an effort to eliminate any unnecessary distractions. The Hotel Continental's well-known service and atmosphere are included at no extra cost!
Meeting rooms 2-3, 4-5 and 6-7 These six meeting rooms are situated in adjoining groups of two, and can be used in various combinations. They can also be used separately and can be divided into smaller, separate meeting rooms or breakout rooms.
Meeting room 8 We like to call this room “the Boardroom”. The interior is decorated with a discerning eye, in traditional English style. The room is located at the corner of the building, and has large windows and a view of the harbour and the Oslo fjord. This gives the room a bright, invigorating atmosphere, and it provides a fine setting for a board meeting, for example. Meeting room 8 also has access to a lobby with comfortable sofas where you can relax during a break.
Meeting room Boman Boman is our new and modern meeting room. It was designed by Petter Abrahamsen, one of Norway's most highly regarded interior designers. This bright and airy room has large windows facing the quiet street Klingenberggaten. Boman is situated on the second floor of the conference centre, and is well suited to both dinner parties and meetings.
About Continental You may not notice anything special when you are about to enter this family run hotel in Oslo, although you may have an inkling of what is in store for you. A really good hotel provides an experience that is slow in unfolding, a pleasant revelation of inner qualities that combine to form an integrated whole. Once you are inside, this unifying concept will gradually become apparent. You will sense that a great deal of thought and years of tradition are at its core. Hotel Continental has been a family enterprise for four generations. It is over 100 years old, and is situated in the heart of Oslo - the capital of Norway. Indeed, it is the heart of the city! The sights of this fascinating capital city are more accessible from here than from anywhere else.
History The history of Hotel Continental sounds like an old-fashioned fairytale about the children of a poor family who, through hard work and sheer talent, created a monument that has existed for over 100 years, and that will be with us for many, many years to come. It all began in 1860 with Caroline Boman, who was born in Sweden. Instead of emigrating to America as so many of her contemporaries did, she came to Oslo (then called Christiania) in 1887. Four years later she married Christian Hansen from Oslo, who was also from a poor family. By that time both of them had begun working in the restaurant trade, Christian as a waiter and Caroline as a cook at Oslo's Grand Hotel.
The National Theatre opened in 1899, and on 12 December 1900 the Hotel Continental with its Theatercaféen opened just across the street from the National Theatre. It didn't take long before a saying was coined: “First came the theatre - then came the inn”. The hotel was owned by a brewery and was rented out to four different restaurateurs over the first nine years, with varying degrees of success. In 1909 Caroline and Christian Boman Hansen took over, and three years later they bought the hotel from the brewery.
Christian Boman Hansen died in 1915, and thereafter Caroline ran the hotel on her own. Their son Arne had emigrated to America and been educated at Harvard. When the waiters at Theatercaféen joined a union and organised an “insurrection”, Caroline asked her son to come back to Norway and help her. Arne came back to Norway in 1927 with his American wife and 6-year-old daughter, Ellen. Until then he had not planned to run the Hotel Continental, but he went into partnership with his mother, and began to reorganise the business. He soon realised that the hotel's only chance of survival was expansion, so he bought two adjacent buildings, tore down one of them and built a new annex on the one left standing. This project was completed in 1931.
As time passed, Caroline gave Arne increasing responsibility for running the hotel, in the knowledge that it was in good hands. When Arne died in 1953, his daughter Ellen continued the family tradition. Together with her husband, Caspar Brochmann, she once again expanded the hotel on the last available lot on the block. In 1960, 60 years after its inception, the Hotel Continental as we now know it, covering an entire city block in the heart of Oslo, was completed.
Over the years Ellen Brochmann, the third-generation owner, left her personal mark on the Continental with a number of restoration and renovation projects. The hotel and its restaurants maintain a very high standard and are careful to preserve the old, valuable traditions. In 1985 the fourth generation, Ellen and Caspar Brochmann's daughter Elisabeth Caroline, took over the reins. The family tradition lives on in the best of health.
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