Good Hotel Guide Review
London’s only Relais & Châteaux hotel sprawls over four red brick Victorian town houses built by Lord Chelsea, its sleeping quarters reached by a warren of staircases and hallways and serviced by a ‘very old-fashioned lift’. Until recently a private members’ club, it is now part of the Iconic Luxury Hotels group (see also Cliveden House, Taplow; Chewton Glen, New Milton; and Lygon Arms, Broadway). Apart from the Union flag, ‘from the outside, you wouldn’t know it was a hotel’, says a Guide inspector. Individually styled bedrooms, ‘many with extraordinary furnishings’, range from singles to the splendid Sloane Suite, with canopied four-poster and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking leafy Cadogan Gardens. Silk wallpapers and Arabescato marble bathrooms give a luxurious touch. You can read in the library, relax in the drawing room, drink cocktails in the atmospheric bar, and eat from an all-day menu in Hans’ Bar and Grill. Meals feature kippers or a full English at breakfast, and later, spatchcocked baby chicken, grass-fed steak or ‘excellent chickpea and coriander burger and tuna tartare’. The ‘super-friendly, very polite’ staff are ‘a highlight’.
Hotel details
Address
11 Cadogan Gardens
Chelsea
London
SW3 2RJ
England
Telephone
020 7730 7000
Bedrooms
56 (incl. 25 suites).
Open
all year.
Facilities
small lift, drawing room, library, cocktail bar, Hans’ Bar and Grill (wine room, conservatory), private dining/meetings/events rooms, in-room TV (Freeview), gym, decked terrace, grill and public rooms wheelchair accessible. adapted toilet by grill.
Background music
everywhere except the library.
Children
all ages welcomed (cots, extra bed in suite free for under-17s, £72 for over-16s, babysitting available).
Dogs
only assistance dogs.
Credit cards
Amex, MC, Visa.
Prices
per room B&B single from £250, double £310–£1,250. À la carte £40, market menu £28–£35.