Photo courtesy of Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts

Travellers looking for Shangri-La will soon find what they’re looking for in Toronto. The first Toronto outpost – and only the second in North America – of the Hong Kong-based luxury hotel chain has been hotly anticipated since the project was announced in 2008. And the wait is finally about to end; Shangri-La Hotel Toronto is set to open early in September, just in time to host events and celebrities during the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.

The hotel will feature 202 rooms on the first 17 floors of a 65-storey condo/hotel building on University Avenue in Toronto’s Entertainment District. Shangri-La guests will be surrounded by some of the city’s hottest bars and restaurants just steps from their hotel. Right next door, New York City chef David Chang (of Momofuku fame) is getting set to open four food and drink operations, all located in the same building – a bar, a noodle restaurant, and two more upscale eateries.

But travellers staying at Shangri-La won’t even have to venture outside of their hotel for great meals and cocktails. Bosk, the hotel’s signature restaurant, will be helmed by Jean Paul Lourdes, who has worked in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants in France and Japan; the menu promises influences he picked up in those countries. And a street-level bar will offer creative cocktails as well as more casual meals.

Photo courtesy of Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts

Then, of course, there are the accommodations themselves, which promise all the space and creature comforts expected in a five-star hotel experience. With rooms ranging from a generous 500 square feet for the smallest option to 2,200 square feet for the Shangri-La Suite, as well as amenities including in-room iPads, an indoor lap pool surrounded by windows on the fifth floor, and a gym open 24 hours a day, the Shangri-La Hotel is set to take Toronto’s recent luxury hotel boom up to the next level.