Originally Posted by
est-gratuite
-Breakfast is still being served in one of the large conference rooms on the 1st floor. The set-up in the conference room felt a bit rudimentary and I saw a lot of tables that hadn't been cleared, so took me a while to find a place to sit. I overheard a staff member staying the ground floor restaurant will re-open sometime in February. Since it was my first time here I do not know what It was like before.
Are you certain that the restaurant isn't open?
I'm in London right now, staying at another Hilton property. We were down near the Tower, Tower Bridge, walked along the Thames, and since I had stayed here several times (the first shortly after the hotel opened), we popped in here to use the toilets (I knew where they were and figured they'd be cleaner than any public toilets).
It appeared that the restaurant was open. There were no signs of construction, there were tables there, and it appeared to be functioning. Unless there was something going on in the kitchen?
That said, having been here years ago, shortly after they opened, I did notice quite a bit of wear and tear on the ground floor. It didn't smell new, and the toilets (near the elevator) were showing signs of wear too. The stream/water feature outside now being bricked up makes the area a bit less special, along with many of the historic buildings that have been torn down for the new London Bridge station (the station does look much more modern than what was there in the past). I kind of enjoyed this property before it was well-known, and some of the neighborhood restaurants on the other side of the tracks (where it seems like a real neighborhood and not just a tourist area).
I'd have stayed here on this trip, but they wanted GBP 225+ per night, when elsewhere I found rates of 110.