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?”’
Which is what the writers all asked and which all the hotels complied with – with no questions asked and no charge. And all could raise a doctor very quickly – except for the Adelphi, which said there was a £25 call-out fee.
When the writers requested haggis and chips, Claridge’s said they’d do it, but only on Burns Night. Gleneagles, perhaps unsurprisingly, could manage it through room service.
The delicate situation of ‘companions’ was broached. ‘In the Middle East there is said to be a code,’ wrote Sue Gray. ‘If a client rings for an extra pillow they will send up a woman.’
‘I don’t think that would happen here,’ said Payne of the Ritz. ‘They are much more likely to ask, feather or foam?’ Which still sounds like code to me.
Standards were slipping. Payne said 900 bathrobes were stolen every year from the Ritz. And he bemoaned the rise of sneakers. ‘It used to be said that you could tell a gentleman by the way he held a knife and fork; now it is whether he has laces in his shoes.’ Or whether he has a hotel bathrobe in his luggage.
‘The hotel business is like the theatre,’ concluded Payne. ‘The curtain goes up every day and the staff are the players. It is important that the guest should leave the audience and, for the time they are there, become centre stage.’
