Check in kiosks at YOTEL: will all hotels have these one day?

We’ve featured YOTEL before – a revolutionary hotel group focused on airport hotels, packing maximum luxury into minimal space.  Based on our YOTEL video and recent guest reviews, this approach seems to be working.

One of the things YOTEL has done differently is to re-examine the check-in process – and automate it.  So I spoke to Jo Berrington, YOTEL’s marketing director about the technology and thinking behind this.

One reason YOTEL decided to automate check-in was that it rents rooms for shorter time-periods – often for people who want a snooze if they have a few hours between planes in the middle of the day – so it has twice as many check-ins as a normal hotel would.

Automated check-in works especially well when most bookings are prepaid – that’s the case with Yotel, which takes bookings through its website and gives customers a booking reference number.  “That’s all you need,” Jo told me, “and the kiosk will issue you your key and your wifi code.”

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The cleverly-designed Premium cabin at YOTEL provides free WiFi and a "techno wall"

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But many hoteliers would be horrified by automation.  Their view is that check-in is the ideal time for customers to meet the staff and for staff to demonstrate their value.  Isn’t that worthwhile for YOTEL too?

“Our thinking is to make our team more available,” Jo said, “rather than to cut staff.”  This reminded me a bit of the Andaz London’s barrier-free check-in, though it’s in a different sector of the market.

Check-in is arguably an easy process, whereas airport customers need all kinds of advice and help – arranging bus transfers, how to get to the terminal, booking alarm calls.  All of this, plus food and drink orders, can be managed by the two YOTEL staff on duty – without getting in the way of customers who just want to check in and go straight to sleep.

I wondered whether automated check-in worked for customers who might be jet-lagged and not completely on top of things.  I was surprised to find out that 70 to 80 percent of all YOTEL’s check-ins are fully automated and occur without any staff intervention.  Perhaps people are getting used to the fact that cheap hotels are becoming like airlines.

New customers are slightly less likely to use the automated service – since YOTEL has a different business model and they’re not accustomed to it, they quite often want to see the room first.

Usage is gradually increasing.  Jo Berrington points out that “people are getting more used to the process with trains, airlines, and so on all using automated check-ins.”  It’s a form of triage – the terminal takes all the easy things to do and frees up staff for more complicated requests.

The technology comes from the company that makes most of the train ticketing terminals in the UK (Shere).  It’s not off the shelf, though – Yotel tells Shere exactly what they want.  In fact, Yotel is now getting the company to work on a new generation of terminals, which make the process quicker and more interactive.  “We’ve learned things over the last couple of years,” Jo said, “and we are keen to incorporate this learning.”

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YOTEL will be opening a hotel in New York soon, and the kiosks will be able to handle far more than they do now – they’ll be able to scan passports, for instance, and they’ll also have a signature pad for customers to sign in.

It’s been easy for YOTEL to introduce the kiosks, because it’s been starting from scratch.  Jo pointed out that hotels wanting to introduce the terminals retrospectively face a problem, because “geographically they don’t have the right set-up for it; they have lobbies with desks.  We actually think desks aren’t good, because they create a barrier between you and the customer.”

Premier Inn is also piloting automatic check-in - for example at its highly-regarded Premier Inn County Hall hotel by the London Eye

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Premier Inn and Travelodge are also running pilot schemes, with the first 20 Premier Inns for example already operating the technology.  If these two giants decide to roll out automated check-in  to all their thousands of rooms, this could have a major influence on the industry.  Could automated check-in terminals be the way of the future?  Watch this space!

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Photo credits: YOTEL, Premier Inn.

The Arch Hotel off Oxford Street has a glowing reputation on TripAdvisor

HUNter 486 is the restaurant at The Arch – a fast-rising hotel that is currently in the top 10 London hotels on TripAdvisor.  Like the hotel itself, the restaurant has a contemporary feel and a refreshingly different approach – as you’ll have noted from our recent review of The Arch.

The service is excellent.  Little things make a difference – my beer came just as my aperitif was empty, for instance, not a second before or later.

Presentation was also good, and it’s of the sort where thought has been given to the best way to serve each particular dish – for instance steak-frites comes on a wooden platter with a big tin bucket of chips – stylish but still in line with the simple, hearty nature of the dish.

The menu is not huge but has been well thought out.  It’s big on flavour – artichoke soup with truffle delivered tons of taste, combining creaminess with mushroomy spice.  A side dish of greens – green cabbage, broccoli and mangetout – came just on the crisp side of tender and with all the flavour that in many establishments is boiled out of the vegetables.

Duck breast came with pak choi and date chutney – an interesting mix.  The sweet tartness of the chutney complemented the richness of the meat, while the pak choi’s slight acidity cut through nicely.  My only criticism would be that the gravy was a bit heavy; but the duck, pink in the middle and crisp on the outside, was just right.  Again, the chefs aren’t afraid of flavour – if it’s bland you want then you should go elsewhere.

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The chefs at HUNter 486 at The Arch certainly don't pull their punches when it comes to flavours, nor indeed in the eclectic drinks list

HUNter 486 does well with the food.  But it really scores with the drinks list.  There are two pages of champagnes – the house champagne is Veuve Cliquot, but I noted Taittinger, Ruinart, Laurent Perrier and Louis Roederer, as well as three rosé champagnes. The wine list has some interesting German and Spanish wines – for instance a white Rioja – and is relatively light on clarets and Burgundies; and the tasting notes are excellently written, giving a good feeling for each wine’s individual character.

Despite the temptations, I didn’t push the boat out and ended up drinking a Meantime Viennese style lager.  The fact that a decent beer is also available on the drinks list is a definite plus.  It’s in keeping with the hotel’s creative ethos which I also noticed when sampling the Arch’s afternoon tea.

There’s even a Somerset cider brandy, as well as a choice of whiskies and other digestifs (poire williams, kirsch, armagnac, and various rums).  This may not be the ideal place to bring your teetotal friends!

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The restaurant offers different ambiences depending on where you sit.

You can be right next to the open kitchen if you want, which gives a view of everything that’s going on (no dramas, though – alas for devoted viewers of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, everything seems well under control!).  Alternatively there are leather-walled snugs for those wanting privacy – and I’m told they also feature laptop plug points so you can watch a DVD if you’re eating on your own, or even catch up with your emails.

In summary, HUNter 486 compares well to other luxury London hotel restaurants and gets extra points for its drinks list and effortless service.

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Photo credits: The Arch Hotel.

A four-poster bed at Hazlitt's: not your average London hotel

Hazlitt’s is a fascinating hotel.  From the moment you step in the door, it’s as if you have gone back in time.  Antique sofas, paintings of distinguished Victorian gentlemen or debauched Regency dandies, cut glass chandeliers and four poster beds – it’s a proper fantasy world.

And since many pieces are real antiques you’d find in the best antique markets, it’s not like a Walt Disney style theme park but entirely authentic.

Fortunately though, the service is very much 20th century and the hotel comes with all mod cons including wi fi, TVs and minibars. The technology is neatly hidden though – in one room, a wall mirror swishes back to reveal the TV and the electric blinds rise smoothly when you push a button.

This is most certainly a hotel with character – each room is quite different.

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A typical room at Hazlitt's, furnished the old-fashioned way but with plenty of technology hidden under the hood

Madame Dufloz, for instance (all rooms have names) is inspired by a 19th century courtesan and luxuriously furnished in blue velvet and damask (that’s definitely the room I’d choose though it might not suit a chap!).

And the bathrooms mix modern power-shower functionality with Victorian style plumbing to come up with the amazing ‘bathing machine’.

Described to me as “a chambermaid’s nightmare”, it’s a marvellous brass construction that pours water down into the bathtub from a great height.

It’s also one of the reasons maintenance for this hotel costs more than for a modern property – all the plumbing has antiquated connections that you can’t get from B&Q; and it’s a listed property, so even the tiniest change needs to go through the planning permission process.

This is a small hotel with only 30 rooms (expanded recently from 23 when the next door property became available) and it doesn’t have a restaurant, though it provides breakfast and a selection of pies and pasta dishes for room service.  It also has an honesty bar in the residents’ lounge.

Hazlitt’s has a slightly ramshackle but friendly feel to it; staff are attentive and good-humoured, and I found when I quizzed the desk staff on local attractions that they really do know their stuff.

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The antique-y feel of Hazlitt's even extends to the bathrooms

Even the smallest things are different from what you might expect – Hope & Greenwood vintage style sweeties in the mini-bar, and a copy of Time Out on the table in all the rooms for example.

The latter is also perhaps a bit of a giveaway on the clientele.

Hazlitt’s is in the heart of London’s film and media district, with many of its customers media types – they may be executives but they’re by no means men in suits (and many are women).  They enjoy the fantasy of the gentleman’s club or country retreat, but they want it with wifi, wide screen TVs and a copy of Time Out to plan their clubbing and socialising.

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So it ends up being quite an appealing contradiction: your bang up-to-date and yet old-fashioned private home right in the heart of Soho.

If you’re looking to stay in the Soho area, you may also wish to research some stylish Soho hotels, or perhaps consider a Soho “crash pad” at Dean Street Townhouse.  And you may also enjoy a lovely Soho evening with a Latin flavour, ending up in one of the best hotel bars in London.

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Photo credits: Hazlitt’s Hotel.

Our harsh verdict on the hotel star rating system: get in synch with today's customer or face extinction

Checklist-based star rating systems were historically the natural way to rank and classify hotels.  When the Savoy opened in London in 1889 it was seen as the ultimate luxury hotel: features like electric lifts and individual bathrooms were a genuine novelty and the epitome of indulgence.

As competitors in the next century caught up or themselves innovated, professional expertise was needed to keep track of who provided what.

There was a constant “arms race” of amenities and services during later waves of hotel development, from the apparently banal (“shoe shine service”) to flamboyant leisure facilities, imposing lobbies and expensive restaurants.  Today the battleground has moved on to iPads, sophisticated in-room technology and free WiFi – but in the meantime, consumer expectations have undergone a fundamental shift.

Hotel star rating systems may originally have served a useful purpose when amenity innovation and facilities had a disproportionate influence in determining the choice of hotel.  This may be why hotel rating systems even now put great emphasis on ticking off big lists of “features”.

But with the abundance of user-generated hotel reviews and the fact that many eye-popping hotel amenities of the past are now seen as “standard” (or worse still, irrelevant), are star-based hotel ratings an anachronism?

Once upon a time you could judge the quality of a hotel by the number of kitchen staff as this charming photo taken in 1910 at the Langham London (still an excellent hotel today) illustrates - but today the goalposts have moved significantly

As hotels set ever-higher expectations, you could argue that great service (given only a cursory mention by many star rating systems) is the new differentiator.  And the arrival of boutique luxury hotels looks to have further changed consumer expectations.  So could the star rating system be in its last throes?  The evidence is certainly mounting:

• Rating systems are too complex.  The process behind getting evaluated is very opaque and known only to hoteliers – not consumers.  The leading rating system in the UK for example has been developed by the AA – a respected and professional organisation, but its detailed quality standards are hard to unravel from a consumer perspective.

• Rating systems are fragmented.  There is no global standard and perceptions are often driven by cultural factors – for example a 3 star hotel room in the US is expected to be fairly large, in Europe not.  There are even conflicting systems within the same country – in the UK at least, the two main rating bodies (Visit Britain and the AA) have made an effort to synchronise their approaches in recent years.

• Rating systems tick boxes that do not matter to consumers.  Online guest reviews allow you to skim and identify specific factors that may matter to you (rather than general factors which ratings organisations assume will matter).  For example, the AA “5 star” classification (which you can access if you download the detailed grading criteria) includes things like “A choice of environments in public areas of sufficient size to provide generous personal space”…but with the advent of luxury boutique hotels, is a huge lobby important?  I’d argue on the contrary that our notion of luxury now sees small and intimate as beautiful.  There are also odd items like “cloakroom service” which 5 star hotels apparently need but which most guests consider irrelevant at best.

Today's hotel guests increasingly don't care about grand lobbies and fussy staff: they'd rather have free WiFi, privacy and lots of little "feel good" touches

• The sample size of guest reviews trumps a hotel inspector’s visit.  Despite the faults of TripAdvisor reviews, sample size is critical.  If hundreds of recent guest reviews tell you a hotel is performing well (once you sift out irrelevant or dodgy ones), isn’t that more convincing than the fact that an inspector ticked a checklist a while ago?  The Arthur Frommer argument that professional reviewer opinions are somehow intrinsically superior is rejected by most travel-savvy consumers.  I do concede one point to Frommer though: TripAdvisor has to tighten up how it verifies if someone genuinely stayed at a hotel.

• Star ratings have been severely devalued.  There are a couple of factors at play: the first being that hotels in the UK can self-declare.  I know several so-called “4 star hotels” in London for instance which fall well short of this level.  There is also the recent trend of “ratings inflation“.  This has been driven by the marketing departments of new hotels wanting to make a splash by declaring themselves 6 star (or even 10 star like one in the Middle East).  While there may sometimes be big investment to justify this, in most it’s just a cheap marketing ploy.  For example, will the supposedly 6 star Wellesley (due to open in 2012 in London) really be better than established ultra-deluxe 5 star London hotels?  I very much doubt it – and certainly not on its opening day.

• Service is not properly assessed in star ratings.  Service has now become the magic key, especially at the luxury end.  Bizarrely, ratings systems assess service in a formal and out-of-date way.  For instance, the AA considers several “throwback” factors as essential to a “5 star” grading: like giving guests a detailed tour of the room or presenting themselves “in a uniform way”: retro aspects that may have mattered decades ago but not necessarily today.  You could argue that the last thing busy executives want is a staff member doing an elaborate check-in or giving irrelevant information when they may only want to shower, work and relax.  Yet hotels which excel in this modern style of time-conscious, non-intrusive service are theoretically penalised by star ratings – while often being very successful on TripAdvisor.

Cosy boutique hotels like the Egerton House in Knightsbridge - where staff like charismatic barman Antonio are the "stars" - are all the rage and ratings bodies need to adjust their criteria to accommodate this "small is beautiful" trend

TripAdvisor reviews are far from perfect (I have criticised them myself through this blog’s TripAdvisor User Guide) but they do at least empower the consumer to sift through raw primary data rather than secondary data.

As with all raw data analysis, there are risks and pitfalls.  But it is patronising how “professionals” assume that consumers are not capable of assessing this data and reaching their own assessment.  To this end, expert hotel blogger Daniel Craig offers strong arguments as to why hotels should be working with TripAdvisor and not trying to sue it.

There is after all an art to reading guest reviews on the internet which most people brought up on the web understand perfectly well.  Let us now look at a practical case study to evaluate the hypothesis that hotel star ratings are out of synch with the needs of today’s consumer.

The best London hotels according to TripAdvisor versus the AA

If you list the “best London hotels” on TripAdvisor, you’ll find them very distinct from the “best London hotels” ranked by official star rating.  For example, several 5 star (AA) hotels languish well down the TripAdvisor list.

How can such hotels justify their lofty “5 star” price tags, if guests who recently stayed in them rank them below much cheaper hotels?

On the other hand, many less celebrated hotels punch well above their weight in the top London hotels on TripAdvisor.  Here is the top 10 from a few days ago (it may have changed since) out of over 1000 London hotels:

TripAdvisor Top 10 as of 3^rd January 2011 (with AA rating in brackets)

1. Hotel 41 (5 star)

2. The Levin (4 star)

3. Egerton House Hotel (5 star though black stars)

4. The Milestone Hotel (5 star)

5. The Hide (claims to be 4 star but cannot find on AA)

6. Soho Hotel (not rated by AA though classed 5 star by other bodies)

7. Sofitel St James (5 star though black stars)

8. The Arch (not yet rated as too new)

9. Hilton Tower Bridge (not rated by AA)

10. The Montague on the Gardens (4 star though black stars)

Hotel 41 doesn't have a big lobby nor a formal restaurant - yet it's currently the number 1 London hotel on TripAdvisor because guests love its intimate, boutique-y feel

Big anomalies…

There are some striking discrepancies in the above list.

For starters, isn’t it odd that several of the top 10 London hotels are not even rated by the AA?  It’s no coincidence too that almost all could be called “boutique hotels” – which rating systems apparently struggle to cope with.

It’s also surprising that there are several “4 star” hotels above and that two of the 5 star ones are miserly black stars (not seen as good as five AA red stars) – the Egerton House Hotel and Sofitel St James.  But both are hotels which past guests seem to adore and well-established stalwarts of the TripAdvisor top 10, as is the Soho Hotel which is not even classified.

In fact, it appears that only two of the above top 10 hotels are rated “proper” (i.e. red) 5 star hotels by the AA.

The AA does though grant 5 red stars to other well-known hotels which TripAdvisor users don’t consider among the best London hotels (though they may still be fine hotels).  Such hotels must however be ticking the “traditional” 5-star boxes of big lobbies, full-service restaurants and so on.

And a hotel like Montague on the Gardens (no. 10) doesn’t even get a proper 4 star rating from the AA (it has black rather than red stars), despite its great guest reviews.  I know having visited the hotel that its service standards match many 5 red star hotels.  Indeed, the group managing it (Red Carnation Hotels) also runs the hotels at number 1, 3 and 4 on TripAdvisor – and they train staff in a similar way across all their hotels.

By offering modern "stripped down" luxury (e.g. discounts at local restaurants and in-room mini kitchens) Base2stay Kensington theoretically gets penalised by hotel inspectors while getting an enthusiastic thumbs-up from its guests

The AA is a superb organisation and the AA website an excellent resource.  But why are its star ratings apparently out of step with real user assessments of hotels?  The missing link in star ratings may be “value for money” – something naturally built into the much-maligned guest reviews.

There is no such thing as “the best hotel” in a given city, only the one most suited to your needs and budget.  And by reading online guest reviews – or blogs which aggregate such reviews like London Hotels Insight – consumers can get a specific handle on the key differences between hotels.

Therefore it could be argued that the ultimate measure of a hotel’s quality is: “would you be willing to recommend it?”  And that’s ultimately a question that guest review sites like TripAdvisor allow consumers to explore which star ratings don’t directly communicate.

As the company told London Hotels Insight: “”TripAdvisor offers wisdom of the crowds and a reflection of a hotel from potentially thousands of travellers. This is provided in various ways – a hotel can be measured according to user reviews; an average rating out of five; the percentage of reviewers who’d recommend the hotel; and against other hotels in the same area.  These measures, combined with the sheer volume of reviews from 40 million users, allow a traveller to get the opinions of many before they book.”

So while TripAdvisor is far from perfect and would benefit from more competition and improved policing of reviews, its data-driven nature, scale and popularity currently make it a more reliable tool than hotel star ratings.

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Photo credits: Langham London, Egerton House Hotel, Hotel 41, Base2stay.

A beautiful painting in the Rose Lounge at the Sofitel St James is typical of London hotels' increasing focus on art

If you want art in London, you might head to Tate Britain, the National Gallery or Sotheby’s for example.  Or for something more cutting edge, you could be tempted to check out the Saatchi Gallery or Tate Modern.

But you might also find your hotel to be an equally good place to find contemporary art – since many London hotels are now looking to artists to help them foster their own distinctive character.  An increasing number of London hotel lobbies are turning into proper little art galleries!

At the rather stylish Cavendish Hotel, for example, a huge painting of London landmarks in whirling motion looms over the concierge’s desk.  The London Eye, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Routemaster buses – it’s all here, and features the Cavendish’s trademark purple tinge, as well.

What better place to showcase the attractions of London?  In fact the Cavendish is so proud of this specially commissioned painting, it has printed postcards of it for its guests to make use of.

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A fantastic piece of art showing London attractions by the concierge desk at the Cavendish Hotel: both beautiful and practical!

At well-regarded luxury hotel The Arch, Vincent Poole was commissioned to create ‘New Shoes’, the artwork that you see as you enter – a woman’s silhouette glowing with the bright colours of shop logos and price tags reflecting the local neighbourhood’s shopping streets.  It’s very bright, very new, witty and a bit irreverent – and it links into the local area too.

There’s also an intriguing alphabet in the corridor leading to the Martini library, made out of monochrome photographs of London architecture. Again, it’s witty and stylish – and up-to-the-minute.

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The pioneering Rafayel Hotel has gone as far as opening its own in-house "Gallery Rafayel on the Left Bank" to display its art collection

The Rafayel on the Left Bank Hotel has also commissioned its own art – and even opened an art gallery next to the hotel, as well as holding art exhibitions in its public spaces.  It’s definitely one of the more colourful luxury hotels – I generally get a feeling when visiting modern hotels that muted colours and old-style elegance are out, zingy lime green and bright terracotta or scarlet are in – and the art is also alive with colour.

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And the Town Hall hotel in Bethnal Green is another to have commissioned new art, including a stag’s head – like the old baronial style hunting trophy except entirely covered in carpet!  Witty and maybe a bit disturbing…

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The "stag's head art" at the Town Hall Hotel is just one of a number of initiatives undertaken by the hotel as part of its broader "art project"

Equally disturbing is the rather haunting picture of little girls staring at you from a rose garden (see top) in the appropriately-named Rose Lounge in the highly-rated Sofitel St James.  You’ll remember it long after you leave.  Art shows are also sometimes held in the Sofitel St James’ public areas – like the inspiring “fashion stills” event featured previously on this blog.

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The Sofitel St James often holds art exhibitions in its public areas - such as the "fashion stills" show held in 2010 featuring this photo of Carla Bruni

A couple of hotels east of the centre have decided to promote local artists.  The free WiFi Hoxton Hotel for example prominently displays the creations of the abundant artistic talent in its local area.  The Andaz near Liverpool Street – a hotel proudly plugged into its locality has a partnership with nearby Whitechapel Gallery to display some of its works in its lobby.

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The trendy Hoxton hotel - located in the heart of one of London's most creative districts - often displays work by local artists in its public areas

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Last but not least is the gorgeous art you’ll discover at the top-rated Egerton Hotel in Knightsbridge – one of the city’s best townhouse hotels – which is even showcased in its own little “Art at the Egerton” leaflet.  Particularly noteworthy are the prints by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

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Art in hotels, of course, isn’t there to be Great Art in the way a Von Gogh or a Botticelli is.  It’s there to decorate, perhaps to amuse, and above all to back up the hotel’s mission statement.  So in a youthful, contemporary hotel you’ll get witty takes on the classics, or lively, stylish works, while in a more conservative hotel you might get nineteenth-century watercolours.

Few hotels have gone as far as the Langham Place in Hong Kong, which has actually created an audio tour to its collection of contemporary Chinese art.  Or Maison Moschino in Milan which features surrealistic and fairy-tale settings that turn the rooms themselves into works of art.

But it’s nice to see originals on the walls – just as it’s nice to find hotels which have an original character of their own and not just the standard corporate “four-walls-and-a-bed in different shades of grey”.

Finally, the first art’otel London (part of the international art’otels chain) will open in the Hoxton area in 2013 and will include a public arts centre, gallery, video studios and photo studios.

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Photo credits: Sofitel St James, Rafayel Hotel, Town Hall Hotel, Hoxton Hotel, Andaz London, Cavendish Hotel.

A few of the mouthwatering and original sweets and pastries we were served during our decadent afternoon tea at the Langham London

London Hotels Insight recently went to check out the award-winning afternoon tea at the Langham.

This is after all the tea voted number one in 2010 by the Tea Guild (the previous London hotel winner was Brown’s in Mayfair – possibly London’s oldest hotel).  The Langham is also a hotel with a distinguished past – a past itself closely intertwined with the history of afternoon tea.

So on a chilly winter’s afternoon, my companion and I entered the hotel’s stunning Palm Court to be serenaded by trayfuls of treats.  Though usually a green tea drinker, I was talked into trying the hotel’s signature blend “The Langham”…a strong Indian Assam brew with malty undertones, a subtle flavour and a citrus-like aftertaste.  I absolutely loved it!

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Afternoon tea starts not surprisingly with the tea - in my case the exquisite Langham house blend which was a refreshingly soothing black tea

A host of gorgeous finger sandwiches then followed including various classic combinations like egg and mustard cress, cornfed chicken with tarragon, cucumber and cream cheese and so on.

What I liked here was the emphasis on the tried and tested.  What’s the point of showing off and experimenting with your guests’ palates, when decades of experience have already revealed the best combinations?

The pastries and cakes were far more innovative though, with my favourite being the melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake.  Other delights included lolly shortbread, a red berry and pistachio almond cake and orange carrot cake.

These were followed by some lovely warm scones served with absolutely impeccable clotted cream and strawberry jam.  Simple, traditional and perfectly executed…you couldn’t ask for anything more.

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Our sandwiches were excellent and focused on classic combinations - bringing back memories of summer picnics and garden parties

So is it really worth the steep asking price of almost £40 per head?

When you take afternoon tea in any of the top London hotels – and particularly the Langham – you are paying primarily for the atmosphere and service.  In this sense the Palm Court lounge doesn’t disappoint because it combines a certain calm serenity with a very discreet buzz.  The gentle piano music in the background only adds further to the very special vibe.

And to extract further “value for money”, you can skip lunch and dinner as my companion and I did  – actually you almost have to do this as self defence against all the lovely cakes!  Added to that, you can relax for hours without feeling rushed (as you rarely can in an expensive restaurant) which makes the whole experience utter bliss – and just about worth the money.

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The beautiful Palm Court venue adds further flavour to the afternoon tea experience

No wonder tea at Palm Court often gets fully booked weeks ahead.  Remember you also have the option to continue your evening at Artesian (one of the best London hotel bars) just across the corridor.

If you want a decent afternoon tea on a smaller budget you could also try tea at The Arch which was recently reviewed on this blog.  Tea aficionados might also be keen to learn how to taste tea from a Fortnum’s tea buyer.

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Photo credits: Langham Hotel.

Note: the reviewer paid for his own afternoon tea.

The London Olympics in 2012 has triggered a breakneck pace of investment in new hotel openings…but will it all end in tears?

The London Olympics will certainly boost revenues for the capital’s hotels in 2012.  But while the majority of hotels are in the West End, most of the Olympics events will be in the East End – and it’s not an easy commute.

East London isn’t traditionally the most attractive area for top-class hotels.  But both the recently-opened Town Hall Hotel in Bethnal Green and the Andaz Hotel in Liverpool Street are changing this stereotype and particularly good London hotels for foodies.

However, Docklands – with its focus on the financial services sector at Canary Wharf - does have some good modern hotels, such as the Hilton Canary Wharf (one of the best London Hiltons), the Marriott West India Quay and the Radisson Edwardian New Providence Wharf.   Shoreditch and Hoxton – close to the eastbound tube lines – are also likely to benefit.

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The Hilton Canary Wharf is one of the best East London hotels within a short commute of the Olympic site

Most of the hotels around Stratford and the Lower Lea Valley are two or three star establishments and they’re generally pretty small.

There’s the Holiday Inn Express Stratford with 114 rooms, and the Ibis Stratford with 108.  Premier Inn will be opening in Stratford in 2012 and will be far bigger than its local rivals, with 267 rooms – but that’s still very few in relation to the expected demand.  It looks as if visitors will just have to stay somewhere else and commute to the Olympics site.

If they do, they’ll certainly have enough London hotels to choose from, because new hotel capacity is currently being added at high speed throughout London.  There’s particularly strong expansion in new London hotel openings within the buoyant luxury sector.

Figures from hotel industry analysis firm STR Global show London has more hotel rooms under development than any other city; there are 8,394 rooms in the active pipeline with 3,682 actually under construction.  The trend is so fast that this data may be out of date by the time you read it.

It is a huge investment – so much so that accountants PWC warn that over-investment could damage profitability if a glut of rooms leads to lower prices.  After all, the Olympics only lasts a few weeks and it’s important to be able to fill the hotels afterwards: a point intelligently made by the CEO of Tune Hotels when he spoke recently to London Hotels Insight and revealed his company’s more measured expansion plan.

The heat is really on in the cheap and mid-range market.  Premier Inn is looking to expand and involved in an increasingly acrimonious battle with rival Travelodge to become the biggest operator in the London market.

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The recently-opened Travelodge Waterloo was the company's 400th hotel - and the company has no intention of slowing down

Since both Travelodge and Premier Inn are planning thousands of new rooms over the next few years, the competition between them is likely to continue to be as fierce as ever.  We only hope one of them finally sees the light in being the first budget hotel brand to provide free WiFi.

It will be interesting to see what happens.  The middle of an economic slowdown doesn’t seem ideal timing for planning new hotels and I wonder whether the Olympics has forced hotel companies to bring forward investments they had originally earmarked for the longer term.

Still, on a personal level I’m looking forward to seeing some new hotel openings – it will give me more to write about!

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Photo credits: Travelodge, Hilton Canary Wharf, London 2012.

The famous green sign of the Savoy is proving irresistible to the creme de la creme of London's top hospitality talent

Not content with outshining rival luxury London hotels with its £220m renovation and some of the city’s most expensive suites, the Savoy also appears to have taken its pick of some of London’s best hospitality talent.

Avid watchers of the new fly-on-the-wall Savoy documentary which has just been shown on UK television will already be familiar with Mr Sean Davoren – holding the job of Head Butler – who has been one of its stars.

Mr Davoren is a charming Irishman and a natural born butler.  But he spent some 14 years at the Lanesborough building up his experience and refining his skills.  There he headed up the team of butlers working under the wing of one of London’s most respected hoteliers, Mr Geoffrey Gelardi.

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Mr Davoren’s successor, the equally suave Daniel Jordaan, recently shared his own expert packing tips with London Hotels Insight.

The Savoy has clearly been carrying out its recruitment in the premier league of hospitality talent, because it also managed to headhunt the talented Erik Lorincz – who stormed off with the Diageo Reserve World Class Bartender of the Year 2010 prize, ahead of some 9000 rivals.

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Head Bartender Mr Erik Lorincz at The Savoy's American Bar

He is a man who spends months obsessively honing his skills and perfecting his drinks – including reputedly one of the best Bloody Marys in London.  Until very recently he was plying his trade at the Connaught Bar (also one of the top London hotel bars) – but he too has now upped sticks to the Savoy’s American Bar where he is Head Bartender.

Among Mr Lorincz’s signature drinks is the dazzling Rising to the Sky cocktail (fresh coriander, camomille, grapefruit and orange bitters, juniper berries macerated in hot water and poured over dry ice, garnished with botanical steam) which won him the Diageo prize.  It’s not on the menu but you can ask him to make you one if you visit the Savoy’s American Bar.

What then is behind the magnetic pull of the Savoy?

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Its rich history certainly plays a part as well as the opportunity to help write a new chapter in the life of one of London’s premier Art Deco hotels.  Jobs at the Savoy are clearly some of the hottest tickets around.

It seems that all’s fair in love and war and in London hotel recruitment!

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Photo credits: Savoy Hotel.

The Cavendish Hotel's bar is one of the most underrated bars in London…and its bartender Warryn recently taught our blogger Andrea how to mix great cocktails

I always thought you needed to shake a cocktail.  And James Bond, of course, likes his Martini ‘shaken, not stirred’.  But according to Warryn who mixes cocktails at the stylish Cavendish (and recently revealed hotel bartenders’ favourite London bars), that’s the last thing you should do.

“Not shaking,” he says,  “swirling.  You want to get it going round and round, not just up and down, swirling it around and cooling it down nicely.  You shake it too hard, you break up all the ice, which is not nice.”

I was watching Warryn make a Smoky Rose – though my favourite is probably Long Island Iced Tea, I’d seen this on the menu and decided to give it a try.  It’s a tricky cocktail to make – first of all the glass has to be coated with agave syrup, then you set light to a rosemary sprig and invert the glass over the top so the smoke infuses the syrup.

Only when you’ve done that can you get on to the mixing part of the cocktail – using Herradura tequila as the base.

Not Jose Cuervo, Warryn told me.  “This Herradura is good, don’t drink anything else. Same with rum, Bacardi’s no good, you want Havana Club 7. You can’t really beat Cuban rum.”

The huge selection of bottles on the bar does include the less favoured brands, as some people ask for them, but you could drink your way through the rums for two evenings and still not finish – Captain Morgan, Mount Gay, Captain Morgan; light rum, dark rum… Warryn recommends Sailor Jerry too.

So lesson one, for me is to always seek out the right ingredients – and that doesn’t mean a bottle of Tesco’s own brand!

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There is an art to making a good cocktail - which depends a lot on buying good quality ingredients and perfecting tiny little details

I notice Warryn doesn’t use a measure for the liquids – he just pours them in.  “It’s in our heads,” he says; he and his colleagues experimented recently to see how accurate they were, and their measures were spot on (for those interested, if a mixed drink contains three or more drinks, it’s exempt from the usual weights and measures regulations).

Then the swirling – a little element of theatre, almost, as Warryn caresses the cocktail shaker into a gentle figure-of-eight loop.  I can hear the cocktail slurping and gurgling inside.  Finally it’s ready; the glass turned right way up again, the cocktail poured in, two straws and – most important – the garnish, a single sprig of rosemary laid across the glass.

“We try to garnish every drink we do,” Warryn says.  “That’s the barman’s signature.  And it makes people happy when they see a good garnish.”

Now I’ve always been a bit puritan about garnishes, perhaps because when I grew up, ‘garnish’ meant a half a tomato and a stale lettuce leaf, or a huge sprig of parsley and it was something you never ate – it was always left on the plate.  So I wonder what people do with their garnishes?

“85 percent of people eat it!”  Warryn tells me.  Maybe not the rosemary or the chilli, but if it’s fruit it disappears.  I can see why – the garnishes include blackberries, strawberries, red onion for the Bloody Mary (something I’ll definitely try at home – as is the addition of lime juice to the cocktail), huge gleaming red chillies; they look good and I’m sure they taste good.

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As well as having a great bar and a fantastic central London location on Jermyn Street, the Cavendish is also one of London's most eco-friendly hotels

So there you have it; how to mix the perfect cocktail.  Lots of ice.  Good ingredients (if you can get the night porter to squeeze all your orange juice in advance, as the Cavendish does, you’ve really got it made).  Swirl and don’t shake.  Garnish it nicely.  It sounds easy.  I have a feeling that doing it for a living might be just a bit more challenging than it sounds!

The Cavendish hasn’t always been noted for its cocktails and the way the bar is tucked away out of sight of the lobby doesn’t do it any favours; lots of guests just walk on by.  But the cocktail menu and the attention to detail are impressive – and the bartenders exceptionally friendly.  The prices are also reasonable compared to the best London hotel cocktail bars.

And how was the cocktail?  Need you ask?  Absolutely delicious of course!

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If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy our review of the American Bar at the Stafford or Antonio’s martinis at Egerton House Hotel.

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Photo credits: Cavendish Hotel.

The painted ceiling at the Banqueting House in Whitehall has witnessed a remarkable history (Image credit below)

He stepped out through the window on to the scaffold.  Whitehall was crowded.  It was a January afternoon and bitterly cold.  He said goodbye to his daughter.  He lay full length with his head on the low block; he lifted his hands to give the signal.  A single blow of the axe took off his head.

Charles I was beheaded on January 30th, 1649, and his death marked the end of a golden period in English art and architecture.

Nothing would be the same again.  Under Charles, foreign artists had been brought to London, English noblemen had started collecting antiquities and paintings on the Continent and the culture of the Renaissance had finally chased out the last shreds and patches of Gothic style.

Ironically, the Banqueting House, from one of the windows of which he stepped on to the scaffold, was one of his and his father James I’s greatest works of patronage; the first truly neo-classical building in the country.  It was also one of architect Inigo Jones’s greatest works.

James I hired Jones to build the Banqueting House as an addition to the ramshackle, medieval Whitehall Palace (Jones created plans for an entirely new palace, in fact, but only this part of it was ever built).

The elegant facade is clearly Renaissance in style, with huge windows, its classical vocabularly of pediments, columns, balustrade, its flat roof (not the steeply pitched roof common in England up to that date), its firm rectangular outline.  Everything is precise, poised and a little understated.

Inside, that feeling of classical proportion continues; the main room is a double-cube; even if you don’t know that, the geometrical form creates a feeling of calm and monumentality.  It’s not too tall, wide or long but just right – a perfection of proportions.  Charles added the crowning touch.  To this restrained Renaissance interior he added a full-on baroque touch – the painted ceiling.

Charles was a connoisseur and admirer of Spanish and Netherlandish painting of his time and had determined to be more than just a collector.

He wanted to be a patron; but first needed to lure one of the great artists to England.  Rubens took the bait; and the Banqueting House was decorated with a Stuart mythology – the divine right of kings, illustrated by the apotheosis of James I.

It’s an amazing work.  What’s more amazing is that it shows James I exactly as a Catholic saint would be shown, being taken up to heaven.  And by waving his infant son Charles on to the throne, the figure of James is passing on that spiritual authority.

This was not a message calculated to appeal to English parliamentarians – and it was not expressed in a way that would appeal to many Protestants.  In short, this was Charles throwing down the gauntlet.

So I wonder whether the choice of the Banqueting House as the venue for Charles’s execution was deliberately, defiantly planned to show how all these values had been overthrown – to show that this was not only the death of a king, but the end of the entire political, religious and artistic programme of the Stuart monarchy?

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Photo credits: Rev Stan’s photostream.