London is an incredibly walkable city, and it helps when you start at the epicentre of all the action. The Hotel Cafe Royal is located between Mayfair and Soho, just a hop and skip from the city’s shopping streets. This property traces its lineage to 1865 and has seen plenty of the city’s past and present, with celebrated personages checking in from the likes of Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf and Winston Churchill, to Brigitte Bardot, David Bowie and Princess Diana.
Outside, it is garbed in that great Portland Stone facade of its Regent Street neighbours. Inside however, Edwardian grandeur gives way to a lobby lounge updated with style and modernity by Italian architect and designer Piero Lissoni. This swish arrival ambience sets the tone for a highly commendable check-in experience, where the front office makes it known–most assuredly–that necessary arrangements would be made for tickets and reservations when needed.
Among the hotel’s 160 guestrooms are seven signature suites with its three-bedroom Dome Penthouse commanding iconic views of the London skyline. Inside, the work of Sir David Chipperfield is showcased across over 3,000 square feet of luxury. Thus London, when lensed from inside of the hotel, becomes decidedly more breathtaking with the hubbub of the outdoors muted even as the breadth of its pedestrian life continually appear through the double volume windows (due to heritage considerations, the hotel has maintained its large windows).
One may be tempted to take breakfast in-room, if only to luxuriate among the many creature comforts provided from Bang & Olufsen in-room entertainment, Carrara marble bathrooms and, in suites, complimentary minibar items sans alcoholic beverages. As a component of The Set Hotels – which includes the Conservatorium in Amsterdam and Lutetia in Paris, the Hotel Cafe Royal is painstaking in its details, with Marvis toothpaste and Floris toiletries, British Family Perfumers since 1730. More recently, the hotel doffed its cap to British aristocracy with its Downton Abbey Royal Package, where guests spend two nights in its historic suites, and a day at Highclere Castle, where they would be chauffeured in a Rolls Royce or helicopter, with a Butler’s picnic and champagne on the grounds of Marlborough House – the birthplace of King George V – the next day.
With its provenance beginning with a wine store and restaurant, it’s no surprise that the present day Cafe Royal continues to thrill the taste buds. Cocktails can be had at the buzzy Ziggy’s, inspired by Bowie’s alter ego, while champagne is best taken at the Oscar Wilde lounge. The former was where Bowie held an impromptu retirement party for his Ziggy Stardust – attended by The Beatles, Barbara Streisand and Mick Jagger. Also within easy reach is Cake & Bubbles, the highest-end patisserie by Albert Adria – brother to El Bulli founder Ferran.
Laurent at Cafe Royal is a culinary expression of chef Laurent Tourondel who has operated casual fine dining outlets with aplomb in New York, Miami and Charlotte, North Carolina. His London foray combines steak and fish with a sushi bar. Here, the meal begins with great promise with the litmus test of its bread and butter a triumphant popover choice – crispy on the outside and fluffy inside. The bread’s hints of cheese and black pepper dovetail very well with the salted British butter before giving way to the umami-rich Wagyu Carpaccio with truffle butter mayo. The Black River ribeye comes recommended but the truly unmissable item is the dessert – a cheesecake from the adjacent Cake & Bubbles which clearly proves Albert and Ferran’s family ties.
All this may ostensibly put you in the mood for a somnambular stroll to Akasha, the hotel’s 13,000-square-foot subterranean spa. Its range of wellness is impressive – which explains why it is consistently the top-rated spa and wellness location in all of London. From a 60-foot lap pool to hammam and yoga studio to an organic bar, you would be feeling quite mellow once you’ve sampled the gamut of amenities here. More so when you sign up for the tailored hydro-treatments and guided meditation, where east-meets-west traditions cater to wellbeing beyond the physical.
