Who are the people who make Blythswood Square - Scotland's Hotel of the Year

Austere and solid, its grand appearance is lifted by the cheeky red light shining in each window, a reference to the five-star hotel's location in Glasgow's former red light district.

"We've got the red lights because Glaswegians have a sense of humour you don't get anywhere else," says manager and managing director Hans Rissmann, who last week celebrated a five-star award from Visit Scotland. "We absolutely did not want to be a stuffy five-star hotel. The doors are open for everyone."

The front door, maybe, but what about the other doors in the hotel? The ones leading to the kitchen, the laundry cupboards, the staff rooms that are out of bounds to guests?

Last week I was allowed behind the scenes at Blythswood Square, to go where staff rush in but guests fear to tread, to discover what it takes to keep it at the top of the hot hotel list. Would there be bodies in the bedroom and rats in the kitchen a la Fawlty Towers or babes in the boardroom and celebs in the showers like Hotel Babylon?

Despite the red light reference, there's nothing tacky about Blythswood Square, which opened in November 2009, was last year listed in Conde Nast's hot list and carried off Scottish Hotel of the Year in the Scottish Hotel Awards. Dating back to 1823, the former home of the Royal Scottish Automobile Club was given a three-year, 35m redesign by Graven Images, which transformed it into a five-star, 100-bedroom hotel and spa for the Town House Group, which also owns Edinburgh's The Bonham and the Edinburgh Residence.

As well as attracting a steady flow of guests, it has also played host to celebrities such as P Diddy, who enjoyed the 1,500-a-night penthouse, John Barrowman and Anne Robinson. Last week it was also the venue for the announcement by Alesha Dixon that this year's Mobo Awards would be held in Glasgow.

"The redesign pays respect to the building and its car heritage and history, but we didn't want it to become a theme hotel. Our intention was to create a five-star hotel with a difference," says Rissmann.

The first person I meet at the threshold is David Nellany, concierge, resplendent in his dark Harris Tweed coat, black trousers, shiny shoes, hat and gloves. "It's all about first impressions. My job is to welcome guests and make them feel at ease. It's an overwhelming entrance and a lot of guests can be overawed," says the 40-year-old Glasgwegian. I'm more than a little overawed myself after negotiating the massive flight of steps, then the heavy wooden doors into the foyer with its red velvet studded booths and acres of gleaming black-and-white marble floors.

Straight ahead, a vast 80ft pendant chandelier dangles, displaying more Swarovski than a whole series of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and cost 35,000. "Don't mention Del Boy," says Rissmann. Actually, I was thinking more Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs, wondering who swings from a chandelier like this and whether I'd be able to press my eye against any of the keyholes of the hotel's 100 rooms.

In reception, Lynsey Eckford, 23, gives me the lowdown on the desk, the place to be to monitor the comings and goings of guests. Eckford studied accountancy before going into hospitality and is the one who will nip out and buy make-up for a guest – "well, you couldn't send concierge, you know what men are like with make-up" – or organise for their dogs to be walked on the green – "always handbag-sized ones so far".

As we chat, the atmosphere is calm and serene, like a duck floating along effortlessly. Meanwhile, downstairs in the lino-lined warren of industrially lit corridors, the feet are paddling furiously as the engine rooms of the hotel work at full throttle to serve up a five-star experience. There are the kitchens, where up to eight chefs sweat on a busy night, a staff room where designer chairs are replaced by plastic, boiler rooms and offices.

The behind-the-scenes areas of the hotel have a DSS office air thanks to filing cabinets, vending machines and health-and-safety notices. "This is the most popular office, where you get paid, and get a shoulder to cry on," says Rissmann, opening the door to HR, accounts and June, the receptionist and "voice of the hotel". The women all smile and make comments about size not being everything, which I take to be a reference to the floor space.

Next door is the board room and Rissmann's office, where he runs through the day's events with his heads of department at their daily 10:30am meeting. Another meeting in the afternoon will sort out the evening events. In a corner a huge pile of posh luggage waits to be reunited with its owners. Whaurs yer monogram noo?

Les, the full-time painter, is busy touching up a wall where a hostess trolley has paid homage to the fact that the building was one of the starting points for the Monte Carlo Classic Rally, an honour repeated this year, and rounded a corner too fast.

"It's like the Forth Bridge in here," says Rissmann. "When we took it over there was water running through the ceilings and it's hard to maintain. It takes a lot of loving, this building."

"And we don't all walk about with clean hands," says Les.

"Yours are usually full of doughnuts," shoots back Rissmann.

It might be all doughnuts and Irn-bru below stairs, but upstairs the hotel serves up to 2,500 meals a week, all masterminded by James O'Donnell, food and beverage manager. At only 29, yet a veteran of The Balmoral and Gleneagles, O'Donnell is typical of the young team, keen to take the opportunity to work in a hotel that was starting from scratch.

"It's very rare in Scotland, at this level, to get an entirely blank canvas to work with. It's nice to see people with enthusiasm for the industry develop. We are not just serving meals and drinks, we are here to entertain as well," says O'Donnell.

As the business people, dirty weekenders and culture vultures stir in the hotel's 100 rooms and think about breakfast, the kitchens have been on the go for hours. Sous chef Derek Blair, 43, from Glasgow, with dark cropped hair and an air of calm, is in the main kitchen where he has been toiling away since 7:30am, overseeing the preparation of food for two events today – a Jo Malone afternoon tea and an evening event requiring canaps for 80 – on top of the daily routine of breakfast, lunches, evening meals and bar food.

A chef since the age of 14, Blair worked with Nick Nairn before travelling the world and returning to his home town. With a mention in the Michelin guide in the first year, how does he account for the kitchen's success?

"I just make sure it goes on the plate," he says.

With the swing door seeing more action than Paris Hilton's diary, that's no mean feat. Chaos and tears are only a dropped plate away. But there's no shouting or gnashing of teeth today, despite the impending arrival of hordes of hungry women. Blair relies on sweet talking his staff rather than Gordon Ramsay-style tongue lashing.

"I'm pure verbal, always asking the boys and girls, 'Where are you?' I can tell by their body language and voice how they're feeling. The key to kitchens and this trade is to be organised. I'm working half-days ahead of myself and have a really good team of 16, which is vital. Sometimes it needs someone to stand back and direct."

And then there's Owen Gallagher, whose Irish lilt gives his repertoire of Bonnie Tyler ballads a Celtic air and keeps the kitchen team's spirits up. "You need someone like that. If I've been giving someone the glare, or maybe they've been dumped, it lifts them a little. You need to have a laugh," says Blair.

But back to afternoon tea. "It's all Sex and the City women wanting cakes. There are 80-100 of them. That's 400 cakes, plus scones and sandwiches. It's all, 'I don't want butter on my sandwiches' and 'I want them gluten free', then they just scoff down all the cakes anyway," he laughs.

As Blair begins to pure verbalise over the poaching of quails' eggs for the canap function in the evening, I beat a retreat to the former ballroom, now Blythswood Square's 100-cover restaurant and cocktail bar.

There, the last of the breakfasts and mid-morning coffees are being served to suited businessmen and women, and casually dressed shoppers.

Head barman Mal Spence is preparing for the lunchtime rush. Dark and focused, the former graphic designer has 11 years as a bartender under his Harris Tweed waistcoat, including three years in Edinburgh cocktail bar Rick's, and is the Hurricane Higgins meets Jean-Paul Sartre of cocktails.

Long hours and late nights listening to barflies chewing the fat have given the 32-year-old Glasgwegian a philosopher's air as he contemplates the art of the cocktail.

"We average 90 a day and 400-500 on a Saturday night. We start serving after 12, unless someone's come in from a casino, and our most popular drinks are mojitos and cosmopolitans. We go through at least three cases of Tanqueray a week," he says.

Why would you swap a career in graphic design, with its office hours, for that of a mixologist, working antisocial shifts mixing drinks for people who cease to make any sense after the first couple? "It was a fox-in-the-road moment, when you stop and think about life and make decisions to take a certain path. I was in Australia and had the option of staying to work as a graphic designer but had a girlfriend in Glasgow and came back and did bar work. I made my decision on love, rather than money. We split up a month later, but I've never regretted it."

What does he think is the key quality of a bartender? Spence lifts his gaze to the huge restaurant windows and surveys the square outside, Glasgow's only remaining non-tarmaced square, come summer a very dear green place for basking hotel guests and office workers.

"Work ethic and humility. You need to be a bit humble. That's one of the most important things in life. See those trees out there? Think about the time they've taken to grow. Bartending is like that. You could spend ten lifetimes doing it and never learn everything there is to know."

I'd love to stay and sample a few cocktails, but if there's any dirty laundry to be aired I need to get into the rooms. Cleaning is in full swing and housekeeping attendant Angela McAulay has been swapping sheets and blitzing bathrooms since 8am. She is now well on with the 12 rooms she cleans on average each day and reckons the staff change 20,000 beds a year.

"I feel every one of them," she says.

McAulay sees the mess guests leave behind at first-hand. Now we're getting somewhere. "Sometimes you walk in and it's been a wild weekend or drinking session but you just roll up your sleeves and get on with it. It's an absolute mess but when you walk out half an hour later, it's perfect and you think, 'Now look at it. I've done that.'"

So what's the worst thing that's ever happened in the course of her duties?

"Well, a personal item was lost and the woman it belonged to phoned up looking for it – she couldn't live without it apparently. I was asked to find it. It had dropped between the bed and a two-seater couch. Pink, it was easy to find. I was told to take it down to concierge for collection so I wrapped it in a towel and gave it to the young man on the desk. He lifted the towel and jumped so much he almost dropped it. Poor wee soul," she giggles.

"That's what I've learnt from this job. Always expect the unexpected."

By now it's lunchtime and the restaurant bar is ticking over nicely like a well-oiled Alfa Romeo. A plinky plonky soundtrack complements the convivial murmur of conversation and in the restaurant's dark grey tweed booths there are couples having lunch, business meetings over coffee, and cocktails are being sipped.

As lunchtime wears on, the afternoon tea guests start to arrive. The click of heel on marble starts like the patter of light summer rain then becomes more persistent, a full-blown hail storm of stilettos as women carrying It Bags – Birkins, Louis Vuittons, Balenciagas and Mulberrys – stream up past the chandelier to The Salon.

Waiters glide among the women as if on wheels, twirling tiered cake stands without so much as a dropped scone as a heady scent and cacophony of chat fills the air. Gorgeous and fragrant the women may be, but they can certainly put away the cakes.

Rissmann stands at one end of The Salon and surveys the scene. I look too. but what are we looking for? One of the ladies-who-lunch slipping a vowel after one too many cocktails, and launching down the stairs? "I'm looking at atmosphere, the temperature, lighting, music, checking that key individuals are in place."

And are they?

"Yes," he smiles.

But there's no time for complacency as there are dinners and the evening's canap event to organise, as some of the guests nip off to the spa, where Natalie Rodgers, treatments manager, and her team aim to treat everyone like a celebrity.

"We meet a lot of famous people but you get used to it. The first client I had just out of college was Mark Owen from Take That which threw me in at the deep end. I've been fine since then," she says.

As night falls and the restaurant and bar fill up again, there's no respite for the staff who toil away hidden from view. Upstairs, Blythswood Square is ablaze with life and at his post at the front door, David Nellany welcomes guests into the hotel and dispatches the satisfied into the night.

"It's down to common sense who you would let in, but the staircase puts off any drunks," he says.

As I successfully negotiate the staircase (it's easier on the way down), the red lamps in the windows light up the dark. Blythswood Square may have put her racy past behind her, but I suspect this lady of the night will always have time for a little action behind closed doors.

Blythswood Square (www.townhousecompany.com/blythswoodsquare) was voted Scottish Hotel of the Year 2010 at the Scottish Hotel Awards; this year's event takes place tonight at the Thistle Hotel, Glasgow (www.scottishhotelsoftheyear.com)

Who are the people who make Blythswood Square - Scotland's Hotel of the Year - tick behind the scenes?