One of London’s grandest hotels has a new member of the family.
Last week I was among the first to set foot in it, the capital’s newest super luxury hotel, Mandarin Oriental Mayfair. Occupying the south-eastern corner of Hanover Square, it’s one of London’s most coveted addresses, and Mayfair’s first new-build hotel in 10 years. The contemporary exterior is clad with burnt red brick ‘baguettes’, designed to fit in with the Georgian terraces that surround the hotel.
It has 50 rooms, of which 28 are bedrooms and 22 are suites, and 77 privately-owned apartments. It is unashamedly opulent, yet still feels personal. Once inside, surrounded by vast bunches of exotic flowers, marble flooring and dim lighting, the city melts away and it is an island of calm. I can imagine privacy is high on the priority list for guests, with a client roster of CEOs, royals and high-net-worth individuals from the world of art, fashion and culture.
Where?
The Mandarin Oriental Mayfair is just a few minutes walk from Oxford Circus, and has a sleeker, more modern feel, an oasis in the middle of London’s busy, crowded shopping streets. The entrance and reception are shared between the suites and apartments, whose owners can use all the decadence of a hotel while having their own space and privacy.
Style
The first Mandarin Oriental in the capital opened in 2000 in Hyde Park and is still very much in swing, in all its lavish splendour. This new hotel has a very different feel. Less of the bygone grandeur of the original, this feels more sleek, intimate, almost spiritual — the design of the restaurant and bar represents earth (the emerald green Ming marble staircase), fire (the warm glowing lights of the bar), wind (the enormous curved wooden hooped sculptures above you, water (the rippling cream fabric above the chefs as they expertly dice and slice sashimi).
The plush carpets of the corridors are a soft landing after bustling Oxford Street; the hand-painted silk House de Gournay wallpaper in the rooms an 18th century-style nod to the magnolias of Hanover Square, and the chinoiserie reminiscent of the hotel’s roots in South East Asia. The first Mandarin Oriental opened 60 years ago in Hong Kong, the second was in Bangkok. The rooms for this Mayfair hotel have been designed by Studio Indigo who usually turn their hands to super-yachts and private jets, meaning the devil is in the cleverly designed detail and smart use of space, zoning the rooms so that even the entry-level suites have a proper sitting room, and all en-suites have double sinks.
I had a nosey in the ‘deluxe suite’ and couldn’t stop pressing the ‘privacy setting’ which turns the bathroom window from light-filled to frosted at the touch of a button. The colour scheme is emerald green, maroon and turquoise, with marble, dark wood and plenty of brass, bronze and gold. The company’s emblem, a fan, has become iconic, and a new version has been designed by Vivienne Westwood which hangs in the entrance, and is replicated on postcards in the leather stationery box in the rooms, and also on a chocolate fan (far too beautiful to eat).
The prize suite
My bedroom, the Hanover suite (from £7,000 per night), had not only a sleek open-plan kitchen-living room (so much marble) but also a sizeable dressing room, in which I discovered a Dyson hairdryer, and not one, not two, but three different dressing gowns. It posed the extremely difficult problem of which one to choose (oh, the problems of the super-rich) – so I did the only sensible thing and rotated between all three, from the weighty silk New & Lingwood to the wafty kimono and the oh-so-soft towelling robe. With its central London location there is little view, and voile curtains hide the floor to ceiling windows – of course I poked my head through, hoping to see into the apartments, but all I could see was high-end offices and people tapping away at computers.
The suite also had two bathrooms, with Natura Bissé products. One was huge, with a bath (and a gold rubber duck – made me chuckle), separate rain shower room with seat and enough room to swing a few angry wet cats a separate loo and then, beside the suite’s door so as not to allow guests in my private space, a guest loo. Ah, the loos. Japanese loos. Heated seats, buttons all over the place... I felt like I was in a comedy sketch attempting to control the various functions (water jets, dryers), before then just finding the very simple gold flush button.
I needed to stay longer to get my head around the buttons; in the suites everything is controlled by a gold bedside touch-panel which controls everything from the curtains to the lighting (and gave my husband a bit of a shock when I accidentally brushed it in the middle of the night and turned all the lights on). The bed was so big that we may as well have had separate bedrooms we were so far away from each other, the duvet an enormous pale gold silk cloud (dry clean only! Argh!). Essentially, I spent 24 hours entirely encased and surrounded in silk, and it was lavish, and it was glorious.
Food & drink
At some point it becomes necessary to swap the silk dressing gown and calm of the suite for some evening finery, with supper in the fine-dining Japanese restaurant, the first in London for chef Akira Back who has 28 restaurants worldwide, from Las Vegas to Seoul.
Having wafted down the magnificent green marble staircase (very rare, whispered the maitre’d), I gazed up at the vast triple height roof, and then dived into the Abar Lounge cocktail bar, dimly lit in warming orange tones – I had the Shochili mango, with tequila, Hwayo soju, mango, lime, and a chilli togarashi kick. The bar hosts ‘after dark’ nights on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, where the secret doors are slid shut to create a speakeasy vibe, and are open until 2am.
But first, on to the dining room of chef Akira Back’s eponymous restaurant, long, slim and bright with dark wood tables and cream leather, with banquettes on one side which were just the right side of private for the clientele and just the right side of open to be able to spy on the 1% sitting nearby. Very, very expensive haircuts all round.
Both food and drink menus had been written by people I’d like to dine with on the regular. It was hard to choose from the crowd-pleasing menu, but I went for one dish from the ‘cold’ section (tuna pizza with umami aioli, shisu, truffle oil and fresh black truffle, £26, on a surprising but welcome crunchy tortilla-esque base), the ‘hot’ wagyu bulgogi tacos, a main of black miso cod with yuja foam (£52) from ‘mains’, and the ‘hot mess’ sushi roll, with sashimi poke, crab tempura and spicy ponzu aioli. I was entertained by the sommelier whose wine list was divided in a way I wish all menus were, simple to follow and making it easy to try something new. I dived straight into the ‘experimental and untraditional’ section (Iranian Samarghandi please!) , then tried one from ‘light fresh and pure’, and so on. The sections mimicked the wind, water, earth and fire theme of the restaurant’s design, with ‘fire’ described as rich, bold and hearty, for example.
Every member of staff seemed pleased, almost emotional, that the hotel was open at last (it’s been a while in the making), and keen to go the extra mile at every opportunity. At breakfast, the waiter was genuinely thrilled that I took his advice to try something a bit different – the pine nut and mushroom porridge with spring onions, pine nut puree and a poached egg.
Later this year, another restaurant called Dosa will open, also in the basement but hidden behind a large heavy door, and inside the space is dominated by the chefs table, a u-shape around the kitchen for just 14 guests. A roof terrace is also being developed.
Spa
The morning after, I headed down to the basement spa post-breakfast. I gave a nod to the gym, which is sizeable and sleek, with a decent weights area and private studio – it’s so exclusive that only ten people a year are allowed to join as non-hotel-guests. Then, a quick swim in Mayfair’s biggest pool (25m), with the lights resembling fireflies and twinkling on the water, blasted my tight shoulders with the jet-stream, then headed for my treatment.
I asked my therapist to do something about my grey, dull skin – and was practically slack-jawed when I emerged from my 90-minute ‘Seed to Skin natural time facial’ (£310) not just nourished and rested but glowing from ear to ear. I have never had such a transformation from just one treatment, and immediately made plans that evening to show off my brand new face. As I emerged from the spa and collected my bags from reception, a bottle of water was pressed into my hand “as it’s sweltering out there “ – as I say, the staff really do seem to care.
