London has close to 1600 hotels offering an array of accommodations to fit most budgets. But for luxury, the city has only a handful of top-drawer hotels. I’ve had the pleasure of staying at the Savoy, which is credited with being London’s first luxe hotel, and the Langham, and both were sufficiently lavish.
But following a recent six-night stay, I now have a new standard for upscale lodgings: Corinthia London.
I first encountered Corinthia in 2022 when I ducked into its Northall bar for a pre-theater cocktail ahead of seeing “Cabaret” (the Kit Kat Club is conveniently across the street). The following year, I booked a table at Kerridge’s Bar & Grill, the signature restaurant operated by Thomas Kerridge, a well-known British television chef and owner of the first pub to receive a Michelin star. The dinner, which I wrote about here, made me want to experience Corinthia’s hospitality further.
I was excited when I discovered that the hotel was offering a third-night-free deal, an attractive savings when you’re talking about room rates hovering close to a thousand dollars a night. But when I inquired, I learned that the offer was suspended the week of my stay because it was also the week of the Royal Ascot. I gulped hard and decided to make the reservation anyway. And because I booked through Go Travel and its affiliation with Signature Travel Network, I got some attractive add-ons, including daily breakfast (normally $57), a room upgrade, and £85 to spend in any of its restaurants.
(For the record, I didn’t see one top hat or fascinator during my stay. Not even an ascot.)
The entrance to Corinthia is appropriately grand, with highly polished marble flooring and view of the lobby lounge where afternoon tea is served under a glass-domed ceiling where a Baccarat “Crystal Moon” chandelier hangs over an impressive floral arrangement.
Our room – an upgrade to a junior suite; thanks, Signature – was just as stunning, a spacious chamber, more than 500 square feet, with an immense walk-in closet. Seriously, I’ve stayed in hotel rooms in New York that weren’t much bigger than this closet. It even had a window, as well as motion detector lighting that activated whenever we walked in. What it didn’t have was a chair, someplace to sit to put on socks and shoes.
So I found an unneeded stool in the bathroom next to the soaking tub (which has its own television) and took that to the closet. The next day, the housekeeper had taken it back to the bathroom. I took it back to the closet and she got the message – it remained there for the rest of our stay.
The bathroom featured double sinks, a large shower with handheld and overhead rain fixtures (quite nice), and a separate water closet with French-style bidet. (It’s time to start seeing Japanese-style washlets in high-end hotels.)
The kingsize bed was more comfortable than I could have hoped for, with luxurious pillows, too. And our courtyard view – from two French balconies – was decidedly quieter than overlooking the street.
There were devices on both nightstands to control all the lights in the suite, a nice touch for those times you’ve already hopped into bed and realize you’d forgotten to turn off a light. A missing piece of high tech, however, was a controller for the draperies. The manual pulls were a bit creaky.
Also in the room, a circular desk, which we in the States would call a table – it was set up on our arrival with a bottle of Laurent-Perrier champagne on ice, some fresh fruit, a small cake, and a note of welcome from the hotel manager.
Next to the bed was a fainting couch, a comfortable place to sit and relax. Oddly, the table next to it was at the foot end, so it wasn’t convenient to place something down, such as a champagne glass. (If I had the energy to reach down to the foot end, I wouldn’t be on the fainting couch.)
The mini bar was in the entryway and featured a Nespresso machine and a well-stocked fridge. (A little too well stocked – I had to jostle things for space to keep my purchases from Borough Market cool.)
Flooring in the bedroom is old wood planks mostly covered by a plush rug. My companion twice stepped on a small nail sticking up from exposed wood at the entrance to the closet. The nail was reported to the front desk but oddly it wasn’t tended to during our stay.
That was the only staff misstep. Everyone we had contact with – from the bellman to the attendants at the multi-storied, labyrinthine ESPA spa and fitness center – was welcoming and gracious without being overly fawning. The concierge desk was particularly helpful, beginning with email requests for assistance in booking restaurants a few weeks before our visit.
Speaking of restaurants, we booked another visit to Kerridge’s and the food is still quite good, though the menu wasn’t as adventurous (no pig’s cheek pie this time).
Breakfast was served in the all-day restaurant Northall, with overflow seating (and quieter space when families were dining) in the bar area. The breakfast buffet had a nice array of charcuterie, cereals and baked goods, and diners have the option of ordering a prepared entree, such as omelet, poached egg on avocado toast, or a full English breakfast (which was missing the baked bean component, so…fullish?). Newspapers are provided, and when my companion noticed that there was no copy of The Guardian, the staff made certain that one was available the following days, and never failed to greet us by name.
We enjoyed having a nightcap in Velvet by Salvatore Calabrese, an intimate lounge with entertainment and a bartending staff seriously into their craft.
And we especially liked sitting at The Northall bar, the venue that introduced us to the Corinthia in the first place. We liked chatting with the amiable bar staff, who are just as dedicated to making the perfect cocktail as their colleagues in Velvet. But I did discover something quite strange:
The bar stocks virtually no British gins.
