The Lanesborough

What’s the draw?

Past lives are always fascinating. Pope Francis used to be a bouncer in a Buenos Aires nightclub, Whoopi Goldberg was once a funeral makeup artist, and The Lanesborough Hotel was the original St George’s Hospital before relocating to Tooting in the 1970s. It’s particularly surprising because this five-star haunt on Hyde Park Corner might be the least institutional building to exist in the capital – a mighty neoclassical structure with unabridged regency styling frescoed with hand-painted trompe l’oeil marbling and ceilings gilded with a modest 42,000 gold-leaf sheets. It’s hard to imagine these walls were built for anything other than living out your favourite Jane Austen fantasy.

Double bedroom at The Lanesborough

Compared to other London hotel institutions The Lanesborough is a fledgling, having opened its doors just 32 years ago. Age is but a number, and there’s no whiff of inexperience in this well-oiled machine. The service is so infallible that many guests stay for weeks at a time. Before arrival, you specify snack preferences and desired room temperature, so once you touch down, you’re met with a spread of cloche-covered crudites to consume as you sink into a button-back armchair.

Whether you’re kipping in a deluxe room or the Royal Suite (a seven-bedroom whopper that’s the biggest in London), all have pelmet-draped beds, marble-lined bathrooms, televisions disguised as oil paintings and a private butler – poised to pour cups of tea, press your garments, and even walk your dog. There’s a sense that no request is out of bounds. Aside from the service, the subterranean spa is one of the best in the capital, complete with a hydrotherapy pool, gym, sauna, steam room, and a plethora of spa services, from massages and pedicures to 24-carat gold facials and even non-surgical buttock lifts.

The swimming pool and The Lanesborough spa

The food and drink

The hotel’s flagship restaurant, The Lanesborough Grill, resides in a grandiose, glass-ceilinged dining room that houses the building’s biggest chandelier. It’s a common plight that hotel restaurants in such regal spaces fall victim to drab, unmemorable menus with anodyne, prescriptive fare such as club sandwiches, fishcakes and prawn cocktails – but this is far from the case at The Lanesborough. Since the closing of Céleste, chef Shay Cooper helms the restaurant’s latest incarnation. The Bingham Hotel and The Goring alum has a reputation for transforming forgettable hotel restaurants into Michelin-accoladed eateries.

Doing what he does best, Cooper leans into a quintessentially British menu that champions the glut of phenomenal produce that grows and grazes on our doorstep. The food doesn’t rewrite the rulebook but isn’t shy of splicing classics with unexpected flourishes, either. Case in point: the coronation crab salad coated in a velvety curry leaf sabayon or the shellfish cocktail married with eel cream and kombu jelly.

The Library Bar at The Lanesborough

The wine offering favours some of Britain’s best bottles from Bolney Estate, Nyetimber, and Gusbourne, and the extensive cocktail list has dedicated martini and champagne cocktail sections.

Breakfast is served in The Lanesborough Grill each morning, where guests linger over plates of smoked salmon blinis, glossy viennoiserie, and teacups of milky Earl Grey while sprawled over a velvet banquette.

What’s nearby?

This grande dame of Hyde Park Corner is within kissing distance of the eponymous green space, so spend your morning strolling, swimming in the Serpentine and piloting a pedalo. If the weather doesn’t behave, scout out a wealthy patron and head straight to the shopping nirvana of Knightsbridge. If the friend with the endowed bank account proves hard to pin down, walk 25 minutes, and you’ll wind up at the Natural History Museum and V&A.