Last summer I met a friend from Los Angeles for lunch at La Goccia in Covent Garden. On the walk back to her hotel, she began remarking how ‘cute’ everything was. The ‘sidewalks’ were cute. The lampposts were cute. Monmouth Coffee was, obviously, cute. Sigh, such is the power of novelty — and a five-star hotel to start and end the day in.
Seeing your own hometown through the misty, rose-tinted lenses of an outsider, however, is more challenging. Nearly two decades in London meant that where she saw charm everywhere, I saw errands to be checked off.
But here’s a life-hack if you are looking to fall back in love with London: stay in a hotel. Decadent? Obviously. It’s supposed to be. Luxury isn’t about necessity, it’s about choice. You already know there’s a frisson of the sexy, the naughty of checking in to a hotel: only heightened when you actually live a few Tube stops away. For Londoners, a night in one of the city’s hotels is like a property-centric affair. You might love the comforting familiarity of your home but likely find yourself bored of it. One night in a different bed can do wonders for reigniting your lusty spark for the city.
Of course, not any old hotel will do. A Premier Inn does its job with satisfactory efficiency when you’re at a suburban wedding, but really you want luxury and glamour for your stay-in-London-cation to really reap the rewards. We are spoilt for choice with those Old-Worldy destination hotels, but a side note for the newness hunters out there, there is a raft of openings hitting London in 2023, including Raffles at the Old War Office, the Peninsula overlooking Hyde Park Corner, and Martin Brudnizki’s Broadwick Soho. Why should out-of-towners get to have all the fun?
Real life is hard graft; staying in a hotel is brief, restorative escape to a world free of errands, admin and housework. And trust me, even one night, a nano-break of a few hours, can do wonders for the mind and body. I recently saw a friend fresh from Claridge’s spa — resistance is futile — boasting the kind of glow and zonked-out air it normally takes two weeks on a beach to achieve. A suite in one of the capital’s swankiest residences is obviously the dream, but I’ll add that I’ve enjoyed a solid 10 hours’ sleep in one of the tiny but spacious enough-for-my-titchy-frame single rooms at The Standard.
In a hotel you can feel like a swaddled, soothed little dauphin. Bed made for you, food cooked and brought to you, heating or air con cranked up or down exactly as you like it. I don’t think it’s original to tell you that my happy place is in a white towelling robe, eating room service fries in bed and watching a film (okay, Love is Blind) on a TV so enormous it rivals the square footage of many of the capital’s studio flats. Heaven knows why you’d want to save that kind of treat for a trip abroad. It’s probably right now you need it.
Speaking of abroad, a London staycation offers escapism without any of the attendant hassle of a foreign trip. No ‘Where’s my passport?’ No weight restrictions, currency conversions or roaming charges. No planes — and if you’re a walker, not even any trains or auto-mobiles. Nor are you reliant on the weather; actually it’s even better if its rainy and cold out. And besides, you are likely already on familiar territory in London, there’s no pressure to do anything but enjoy the hotel. What bliss.
Having said that, we Londoners are tribally-minded folk. We know our little neighbourhoods intimately yet can be bamboozled by other pockets of the same city. This is your opportunity to give in to cliché and test drive an alt-postcode version of yourself. You might find yourself in the Mondrian on Curtain Road imagining life as a loft-living creative. You could be the sort of person who foes for a Keatsian frolic on Hampstead Heath, after waking up in the newish rooms above The Bull & Last. Perhaps you’ll slip easily into the sumptuous surrounds of the recently revamped Dorchester feeling very much like a minor royal — all privilege and zero obligations.
Indeed, there is a pleasing anonymity that comes with the moment you check in. Something that is rare in the city you call home and pretty much impossible in a social media world (dare you to turn off your phone). That can, of course, illicit bad behaviour, of which there is a right kind and a wrong kind. The wrong? I’m not talking about the things that, for decorum’s sake, I’ll pretend I don’t know exist; but the issue of manners. Staff are not to be screamed at, housekeeping is not there to flush the loo for you and, while we’re at it, lamps are not for the taking. The good kind of bad behaviour, however, is up for grabs — primarily things you would never do in your normal life. Why not pull those blackout blinds down and sleep in until lunch? Why not have a four-course breakfast? If you told me you were regularly eating burgers in the bath at 11pm on a normal night I might be concerned about your mental state, but doing it in a hotel? How it’s supposed to be.
I am a woman of simple pleasures: 24/7 room service, a free-standing tub and a fleet of staff are all I ask for to fall back in love with London again. How cute.
