By 
As you would expect of a major global city, London has an embarrassment of world-class hotels — and that number seems to be growing by the week. The Evening Standard calls it “London’s 7-star gold rush”, identifying “at least 13” high-end hotels scheduled to open by 2025. The Peninsula, by Hyde Park Corner, opened in September, closely followed by the enormous Raffles at the London OWO (catchy name, no?), on Whitehall. Still to come: a Mandarin Oriental in Hanover Square; a Six Senses in the old Whiteley’s shopping centre, on Queensway; the Chancery Rosewood at the former US Embassy in Grosvenor Square; and the Waldorf Astoria Admiralty Arch.
Much ink, real and pixellated, is spilled over the multi-billion-pound cost of these mega-projects, the sky-high room rates they’ll be charging, and the fierce competition they face — from each other as well as the capital’s existing famous five-star names — to attract wealthy visitors from China, the Middle East and beyond, as tourism returns to pre-pandemic levels, or even, at the top end, exceeds them.
Doubtless each of these hotels will offer sumptuous accommodations, supremely accomplished service and facilities of almost unimaginable luxury.
But all of them will be second-to-one.
Because, to paraphrase the late Tina Turner, some things really are simply the best. Claridge’s, the stately and yet somehow also sexy art deco bolthole on Brook Street, in Mayfair, is not just the best hotel in London, or the UK, or Western Europe. It’s the best hotel in the world, with the most stylish rooms, the warmest service, the most glamorous clientele. Its spa is more spoiling than other spas. It has the most elegant bar. It serves the most delicious afternoon tea. Even the coat check is more fashionable than other coat checks.
And now it has a brilliant new restaurant deserving of its status. Not that Claridge’s hasn’t been home to wonderful restaurants in the past. In the past couple of decades the hotel’s dining room has been turned over to super-chefs including Gordon Ramsay, Simon Rogan, and Daniel Humm, of New York’s vaunting Eleven Madison Park, whose Davies and Brook was the most recent inhabitant. Each of those were impressive in their own ways, as you’d expect from some of the most celebrated chef-patron’s in the world. But they were not always easy to love. Humm’s beige interiors and stated desire to go vegan were no doubt admirable but also… no, chef.
And so, commendably, Claridge’s has taken the management of its restaurant in-house. And with a wave of its wand it has done away with the precious interior décor and the fussy menus.
The new Claridge’s Restaurant — a return to the name it last used 20 years ago — must have a claim to be the most gorgeous dining room in London. Stained glass ceiling, racing green banquettes, mosaic flooring, pendant lamps, marble, brass, a room that is tall and chic and beautifully turned out. The food is equally uncomplicated, equally appealing. It’s a British brasserie, and it offers precisely what you might wish for: soups, salads, seafood, sides and main courses exactly as they should be. Cornish sea bass. Roasted Norfolk chicken. Steak au poivre. Grilled native lobster. Finish off with honey roasted figs and a selection of British cheeses. Polished, unpretentious, fabulous.
The thing about Claridge’s is that it makes you feel you are exactly where you ought to be, doing exactly what you ought to be doing. Now you can also feel you’re eating exactly what you want to eat.
Claridge’s, Brook Street, Mayfair, London W1K 4HR. claridges.co.uk
