uggboy

Thanks MacMyDay your room on the 1st floor is understated and gorgeous at the same time. Enjoy your stay and yes, we're looking forward to your review/thoughts.

How's the bathroom? Equally we look forward to hear about your service, food & beverage experiences at The Berkeley.

Cheers & Safe Travels. ^

Pausanias

Would love to see the sex dungeons on the, er, 2nd floor!

Good lord, what has happened here? Such a traditional place . . . your room looks like a student hostel in Scandinavia with Ikea fittings. It makes an Aman room seem positively chintzy. And would anyone seriously sit out on those tiny Juliet balconies? I remember the Berkeley when Peter Ustinov and David Lean had permanent suites and you couldn't get past the front door without a tie.

Incredible how things change.

MacMyDay

Well, this is where things got interesting. I had not actually been into the bathroom when I wrote that quick reply, as my better half was hogging it, as she does. So in going in, first impressions were positive: I like the design, the shower controls after out of the way of the shower head, so you avoid the initial water freeze (Park Hyatt, Sydney was the same), they avoid the annoying push-to-release plug mechanism and it includes a Toto toilet to finish the Japanese feel.








Where it goes wrong is the minor fact that it clearly was not finished and this only took an additional 10 seconds to spot. Whoever snagged the room needs to get their eyes checked, as the finishing was amongst the worst I've ever seen in a luxury hotel. All of the plastering at the top of the entire bathroom was missing; the shower and toilet walls still had bits of rubber attached to them, along with large amounts of dust, cracks and rigid surfaces. It's not going to ruin my stay, but as I insisted on a first floor room, staff did ask me what I thought of the room, so I told them. Someone came up within a few minutes to take a look and agreed entirely that it just was not finished. Management promised to look into who signed it off. I think I just made their Monday a lot worse.







I rather liked the room - it reminds me of the Aman Tokyo style, but the balconies are pointless and until the hotel completes its full refurb, it lacks a good amount of privacy too. The hotel is going through a massive transformation though, so you may not like what you're about to see....

Let's start with the second floor and the dichotomies of The Berkeley.


1st floor rooms


1st floor corridor


1st floor stairs entrance

The first floor is rather nice, I must say. Now let's take a peek at the second floor.


2nd floor stairs entrance. What...just happened?


2nd floor corridor. Did the designer have a stroke?



The completely refurbished Collins room, previously called The Caramel Room


Collins room extension


Collins room extension


New entrance. I can feel Pausanias having a meltdown.


Main entrance


Refurbished Blue Bar


Blue Bar


Blue Bar extension


Blue Bar extension


Rooftop pool - the roof will be open on better days


Breakfast buffet. Many points for presentation, not so many for variety.

op487062

Your pictures are stunning, I would gladly read a blog of your hotel stays.

Pausanias

Absolutely gobsmacking makeover . . . really like the photo of the main entrance with its frames within frames and that sneaky strip of Portland stone and the old hotel on the top.

Looking forward to hearing about Marcus if you went there on this visit . . .

offerendum

Thanks for the update! The rooms are now in my eyes simply awful and totally out of place in London. I guess I will keep visiting Marcus in the future but also still avoid the hotel.

MacMyDay

Why thank you, kind sir. Lucky for you, I do actually have one: http://thegoodthebadandtheluxurious.com

Worth noting that the room I stayed in is exclusively for the 1st floor. The other rooms are completely different, which is why it's such a strange setup; you could book a room and end up with any number of different styles. With The Connaught you can end up in the contemporary wing or the classic wing, which would likely be something that would be strongly advised for people staying to look into before hand, in case they had a strong preference to one or the other. With The Berkeley, I know the first floor is completely different to the second floor and the 8th and 5th are different too. It's been too long since we stayed on the other floors for me to comment with any authority now, but my point is that you are almost staying at a hotel within a hotel. It must be inevitable that a lot of people are disappointed with their room choice, as what they have seen on the website/brochures does not match what they get on arrival.

We did eat here on the Friday night and met the wonderful bhrubin and his husband before their meal on the Saturday night - I'm interested to hear his thoughts too. I have been to Marcus approximately 20 times before, including a highly memorable Christmas Day meal in 2012 with my dad and my girlfriend. I would switch between Marcus Wareing and Gordon Ramsays Royal Hospital Road for client events and dinners, so know it fairly well. Since it had the refurb and became Marcus, I have only been 4 times. The first was the week it opened and I felt their new casual approach took it to the extreme and they became too laid back, with limited service and no memorable dishes. We went back a few months later and had a fantastic meal, so then took our friends last year and found it memorable only for being unmemorable. That makes sense to me. So the only reason we were there on Friday night was due to some new friends we made in North Island wanting to try it. Luckily it seemed everything was at its peak on Friday night and after 8 courses + cheese, I'm happy to say it's back to its best, or near enough to it. The only let down was the desserts weren't mind blowing, but every other dish was exactly to all our liking and would mean I will return again soon.

livefromtuscany

Thanks MacMyDay for the review and pictures, I can't say I'm a fan of that refurb either. The different styles are quite odd... However, great writing as always and great pictures ^

vuittonsofstyle

Interesting, as ever, MacMyDay! I gather that architect, John Heah did the new rooms/suites. He did Four Seasons Sayan and Amanera - Dominican Republic - hence the resemblance to Aman style.

MacMyDay

Thanks for the thanks, but I don't feel I've really said anything other than taking some pictures and sticking them on here. Rather than blabber on, I'll stick down some thoughts. But as I need to blabber a bit, I'll do it quickly...


I know The Berkeley very, very well. During a period of several years, I was here 2-3 times a week. I'm so familiar with the place that I was able to recognise staff on their televised publicity in the room - staff that had left 3 years ago. Even though I switched to staying at The Connaught (they share the same owners) 2-3 years ago, due to my preference of the location, service and spa, The Berkeley will always hold fond memories for me, particularly as their staff turnover is remarkably low for the industry and many of the staff are still there. The transformation over the last few years has been quite incredible, even before Qatari money came in. I was invited to their pre-launch of The Blue Bar back in June, walked through the door to be greeted by a new member of staff, who then asked who the hell I was as so many people would come up to me and talk to me. It does make it quite hard to be so critical of a place when I know so many people, but luckily I do not feel The Berkeley's issues are with those people, nor does it have many issues, but it still would not be my #1 choice for London.

• As noted, The Connaught and The Berkeley have the same owner and same booking system, so they can see exactly how many nights I've stayed at all the properties. The Connaught has a stay list for me that has everything setup exactly how I want, right down to the Tempur pillows they purchased me. As you'd expect after 100 stays, this is rather detailed. I didn't bother mentioning anything to The Berkeley, as I wanted to see what they would do. They did nothing. If anyone ever had an advantage on how to treat a guest, it was now. The hotels are 10 minutes apart in a taxi, so even sending the pillow over would not have been that hard, but at least providing the basics of the list would have been a good start.
• On a better note, one of the staff I've known for over 4 years went and contacted me on Facebook at the beginning of the day to mention he saw I was checking in and wondered if I was free for a catch-up drink.
• The Berkeley and The Connaught send out emails the day before arrival to ask when you will arrive. I responded to say 2pm, to which they said they might not be able to guarantee it as normal check-in as at 3pm, but they will do their best. On arrival they said they were expecting me at 6pm. They did overcome this by giving me access to another room for 2 hours to finish some conference calls I needed to take part in.
• When I got the room key, no one showed me to the room.
• As much as it seems to have divided opinion here, I really did like the room, but the poor finishing in the bathroom is inexcusable. The more time I spent in the room, the more issues became apparent, such as the TV being on the side of the wall without anyway of pulling it out, meaning you cannot watch it from bed. The chairs were not very comfy to sit in; there was no desk, yet had a dining table that was too small to eat at; the lighting system is brand new, but isn't easy to follow - turning it on "Dim" in the morning was like someone blasting sun into my eyes. Even privacy was an issue, as there were no window sheets, so people could look into your room unless the blinds were down, but if they were down it was completely dark.
• Between Koffmans (sadly due to close this month), Marcus and The Collins Room, The Berkeley offers the best food selection of any London hotel. Both at The Connaught and The Berkeley, they have reduced their main restaurants menus down to just a single page, but are still prepared to make anything off menu. I love The Berkeley's dover sole (far better than anything at other sea restaurants, like Scotts), so they were able to prepare this for me, even though it did take them over an hour to do so. The breakfast buffet is beautiful, but small. Breakfast has never been a highlight of The Berkeley, but now not even the menu had anything that appealed, so I just took a selection from the buffet. I was going to walk up to The Lanesborough for breakfast there, but as I had not eaten here in nearly a year I wanted to try it again.
• There are massive changes coming to The Berkeley now that Koffmans is closing. Depending who you hear it from, it's either being turned into a spa/swimming pool and the top pool is being used for some super apartment, or it's going to be turned into a series of extra rooms and another restaurant.
• We went to try out the roof top pool. Rather strange they make you sign-in, but they offer you a free tea, which was a nice addition to previous visits. The hotel is very family focused, so children are very welcome. It could not be more different than the Aman spa at The Connaught, where you will be lucky to ever see anyone and children are restricted to 2, two hour slots of the day.
• As The Berkeley could not give us a 4pm checkout and we were hanging around London, we asked the concierge (ex-Connaught staff who knows us very well) if they could ask The Connaught spa if we could go there for a few hours. I don't want to be taking the piss by just showing up when we're not paying to stay there, but they had absolutely no problem at all with it. We even got a wonderful welcome on arrival.
• On checkout I met the Hotel Manager, who has been there for ~5 years. As The Berkeley was one of the first luxury hotels I ever stayed in, I did not have the same expectations as I do now. Even though he had been there for 5 years, we had never spoken. When I had a brief chat and he could tell that I knew everyone, I think he felt a bit embarrassed by this fact.
• On checkout the duty manager came to apologise about the room. He mentioned how he always saw our name on the list but had never had a chance to come say hello. I last stayed in June '15, so probably worth checking facts first.
• The luggage took over 15 minutes to arrive as well, as somehow they got completely confused by the process.

So overall, The Berkeley offers fantastic food, great location, a large variety of rooms that may or may not suit your taste (I'll have to hope it's a one off mistake with our room), London's one-and-only rooftop pool and a wonderful bar and spa. The issue, and the main reason we left The Berkeley, is the service. There are some real gems within the staff, but not enough that can cope with the room count. I do not think it's a coincidence that the best hotels in London for service are those with a lower room count: The Connaught, The Goring and The Beaumont.

Pausanias

It appears that Koffman's restaurant in the Berkeley is (sadly) closing on 23 December. However, from mid-November on weekdays it is only catering to private parties. There are tables available during October for those who crave Monsieur Pierre's fabled pig's trotter for one last time.

MacMyDay

That's interesting - the Hotel Manager told me it was entirely for private parties from the end of October.

MacMyDay

We stayed in Antony Gormley's Room at The Beaumont last night - https://www.thebeaumont.com/rooms-an...-gormley-suite

Without any doubt the most unique city hotel room I've ever been in. It's sold as an experience, which is certainly correct, as it will not be for everyone. I did my best to photograph it, but it's pretty darn hard to do so as the bedroom is so large, so other sources (including the website, linked to above) do a much better job. You also need to appreciate that it really is a piece of art you are sleeping in, which this photo (not mine) does an excellent job of portraying: https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/20...ezeen_2ban.jpg





Entrance


Living room


Living room


View from living room into bathroom and onto the bedroom


Bathroom


Bathroom


Bedroom


View from bedroom back into the bathroom


Bedroom

Window open


Bedroom

The ceiling/surrounding area


The ceiling/surrounding area

MikeFromTokyo

Great blog^

I really enjoy your posts on FT and your reviews in your blog. In addition to great content and photography, you have a very witty and engaging writing style.

offerendum

The room is really unique and very special. Very interesting to see, thanks^