‘We provide whatever is asked for’: a night at the country’s top hotels, 1988

‘Standards were slipping, 900 bathrobes were stolen every year from the Ritz’: Britain’s hotels, 1988. Photograph: Richard Waite

Observer reporters tried a night in ‘five top London hotels’ – the Ritz, Savoy, Claridge’s, the Dorchester and the Hilton – ‘as well as the Britannia Adelphi in Liverpool’ (and others). Ouch. (‘Are you being served?’ 15 May 1988.)

First up, Ritz general manager Julian Payne gave the inside story: ‘You get all sorts of requests and the mark of a good hotel is to provide whatever is asked for without sounding surprised. If a client asks for rubber gloves, you don’t ask why. You say, “No problem, pink or yellow?”’