SLS at Beverly Hills, CA [Master Thread]
Apr 26, 2017, 6:00 pm
Didn't get upgraded (I am SPG Platinum) and actually thought I would, considering I was there was for short stay and in the middle of the week.
Didn't have a chance to try the breakfast.
Was quite annoyed that the key didn't work first time around (had to go down to have it re-programmed); they escorted me upstairs then, and the gentleman escorting me had trouble with the key himself. They use the old-school insert-the-key system, vs the prox key one has to tap, which surprised me.
Apr 27, 2017, 12:25 pm
Didn't get upgraded (I am SPG Platinum) and actually thought I would, considering I was there was for short stay and in the middle of the week.
Didn't have a chance to try the breakfast.
The breakfast was good, but not great.
As for the price point, the BH Marriott is half the price, has nicer rooms, upgrades me to suites most of the time, but lacks the pool scene or the excellent restaurant at the SLS. Frankly, while the neighborhood around the SLS isn't all that exciting, they get the price point because of the scene with two guys in their 20's pulling up in a Bentley convertible and the Asian woman returning in a BMW with a driver dropping off a full trunk of bags to the bellman and heading back out, etc. -- and that's just while I was waiting for my Uber
Apr 27, 2017, 12:56 pm
My husband and I were walking through the parking lot and my husband was fumbling with his money clip trying getting out a tip for the valet when he dropped some cash on the ground. A man picked it up for him and handed it to him smiling, saying- "Hey- can I have some of that?" It was Tiger Woods.
More on topic, my son & his wife used to really love the SLS, but were disappointed on their last stay. They said it didn't have the same vibe it used to have.
We always had fun at SLS. We especially enjoyed the tasting menu at SAAM.
Apr 27, 2017, 7:03 pm
Apr 28, 2017, 2:39 pm
Ah yes -- I had that. Tasting menus wear me out though, so I don't think I will be ready to return for a year or two. Great meal though.
May 31, 2017, 3:34 pm
How has the hotel been lately for Plat upgrades? For SNAs?
Jun 25, 2017, 10:57 am
Last edited by bhrubin; Jun 25, 2017 at 5:21 pm
Jun 25, 2017, 5:07 pm
SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills
465 S La Cienega Blvd Los Angeles, CA US 90048
Tremendous service and spectacular Saam dinner despite just an OK suite (46 Photos)
SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills
My favorite restaurant in all of Los Angeles is the Saam private dining room in the Bazaar by Jose Andres at the SLS Beverly Hills. Since Saam is undergoing a renovation next month for several months to bring it more in line with the famous minibar by Jose Andres in Washington, DC, we wanted to try Saam one last time.
We never before had stayed at the SLS--despite the fact that Saam and the Bazaar are located in the hotel--because their dog weight limit of 40 lbs precludes us from bringing our 110 lb Rhodesian Ridgeback, Macallan. For this stay, however, my Ambassador got us permission from the SLS to bring Macallan. So off we went!
This 1 night stay was an award using 20,000 Starpoints. Several days before our stay, the hotel front office manager emailed me to indicate that they had upgraded us to a Lifestyle Suite. Considering I hadn't used a SNA and it was days before our arrival, I was pretty impressed.
The manager also had indicated several days before our stay that the rooftop pool deck would be closed for a private event on Sunday. We already had planned to check out by 10:30 am to meet friends elsewhere for brunch, so this had no impact on us.
Check In
Check in was busy, with a small line and 2 attendants--but it only took maybe 5 minutes for us to be helped, despite the hotel being completely sold out. After a few minutes and me completing their pet policy form, we were off to our room.
One of their front desk managers had upgraded us from the entry level Superior Room (402 sq ft) to a Lifestyle Suite (500 sq ft) several days before arrival. Considering regular Platinum upgrades don't normally happen until check in, this was a very nice gesture. I didn't bother with a SNA for this 1 night stay. But my amazing SPG Ambassador and the hotel team clearly were trying to impress.
Room
The Lifestyle Suite was not terribly impressive, but it wasn't bad, either. Basically, it's just a larger room with a workout machine along one wall (which we never bothered to use).
The desk and seating area at the back of the room was clumsy and odd:
That one window in the room made the room quite dark...and the room lighting was pretty paltry, as is often mentioned on TripAdvisor and other reviews herein. The view onto the courtyard was meager:
Closer to the door was the storage cabinet/closet space:
The right two doors opened to reveal the closet:
The bottom left segment opened to reveal a mini-fridge:
Just above that was a mini-bar with a pull down drawer):
Just above that, in the top left segment, was the safe and coffee/tea selection:
Near the door/entry was the mirrorer workout machine against the wall, along the hallways that leads to the bathroom (with a lot of wasted space):
The bathroom was small and had a sliding set of mirror doors which allowed entry (we kept it open and wondered about this design):
The bath felt luxurious but very dark, not helped by the fact that the room was already dark. The single vanity was disappointing for a "suite" level room, even if it obviously wasn't a proper suite. It wasn't really a junior suite to me, but it was a more spacious room.
The air conditioning worked beautifully, something that I don't always get to enjoy. I never had a single issue with air con despite the fact that it was 90 F outside for most of the weekend.
The shower pressure was pretty pitiful, another disappointment with the bath. The shower area itself was spacious and comfortable, though the lack of a separated toilet room was curious for a "suite" room.
The bed was very comfortable and soft for us. We slept pretty well, even after Macallan jumped up in the middle of the night!
Overall, the room design was pretty nice...but laid out in a poor way. The fact that the "suite" had but a single window was also pretty tragic.
We didn't love the room, but we ended up having a pretty comfortable stay for the 1 night, after all. Macallan certainly approved:
Service
The service at this hotel is reputed to be very good...and we found the service to be outstanding, as well. The bellmen were extremely friendly and helpful, the check in attendants were friendly and helpful (and quite efficient and patient with some cluelss guests), the guest services desk attendants were all friendly, and the valets were great.
I did call to let the manager know we found the room to feel more like a downgrade--though we appreciated the hotel trying to be generous with the early and unexpected upgrade. I just wanted to give feedback with no expectation for more. Yet the manager I spoke to was incredibly gracious, apologizing that we were disappointed, and asking what she coud offer to help make up for that. I demurred, since we had been upgraded on an award stay for just a single night. She made sure to tell me that the hotel was slated to start renovation soon to address some of the very issues that so disappointed us, and she indicated how much they wanted us to return after the changes were made. She was incredibly deft at turning a bad situation into an extremely positive one. I already was impressed with her...so much so that I wrote to my Ambassador to compliment her!
But when we got up to the pool deck for a drink, we were told that the same manager had authorized a $100 food/beverage credit for us. I was stunned! I at first declined, but then the gracious pool staff convinced me that we should enjoy it. So we agreed to have a round of drinks at the pool bar. After that, the bartenders really pushed us again to enjoy the credit since we'd only used about half...so we had a second round. Yikes--we don't normally drink during the day! But then we'd used the credit, and I tipped the bartenders generously. The entire scenario smacked of being at a St. Regis or Aman hotel with such incredible service, friendliness, and eagerness to please. We truly were impressed.
Even the next morning, my husband went down to get coffee and walk Macallan...and the food/beverage director ran into him and knew him and Macallan by name! Pretty damn impressive, indeed.
We won't even comment on the incredible dining service at Saam (see below).
Overalll, the service in this hotel truly is fantastic, and turned me around from my disappointment with the room to being so impressed by the high service standard. While I don't love the rooms in their current incarnation, they definitely are decorated with high end details--and the service here makes me extremely interested in returning once they do renovate.
Dining
Dining was the reason I LOVE this hotel location. The Bazaar by Jose Andres is one of my favorite restaurants in Los Angeles, and its private dining room, Saam, is my absolute favorite in the city. I believe Saam is better even than the famous Providence and Melisse.
The Bazaar overall has numerous dining spaces:
Saam is the private dining room located at the very rear of the restaurant:
Our dinner, again, was incredible.
Our dinner started off a bit slowly, with a delay in being seated, but then took off and was incredible from there. I had thought my last dinner at Saam (for my birthday in Jan 2016) was the best I'd ever had in LA...but this dinner at Saam topped it. This was unquestionably the best dining experience I'd had in Los Angeles, and it rivaled some of the best dinners we've ever had. This was truly a Michlin 2-3 star experience for us.
The photos for our dinner tell the story...and for $150 a person, the dinner was a steal. We added black truffles for an extra $75 per person. The wine pairings we chose were $500 and $1000, so we really went to town--not something most of us do (but something I always do, since I'm such a wine fanatic and love experiencing new wines or older and extravagant wines with food). The only issue we had was not being offered the less expensive wine pairing options. But the wines paired incredibly well with every dish. This truly was one of the best wine pairing experiences we've ever enjoyed.
They gladly substituted a porcini for a pork dish--for our friend who's seen Babe one time too many:
That's not corn--it's foie gras shaped to look like corn!
Had enough? Dinner lasted 4.5 hours! We were stuffed..but not uncomfortably stuffed as can so often be the case. Portion sizes were spot on.
Service throughout was amazing--and relaxed, just like we love it. We joked around with the sommelier, servers, and chefs, and they seemed to enjoy the experience as much as we did.
SUBLIME.
Location
While the hotel is not located super close to anything of note, it is not far from most things of note in Los Angeles. It was just a 20 minute drive from meeting a friend at the Luxe Sunset Blvd Hotel before checking in, and it was just a 10 minute drive to our brunch at the Palihotel on Melrose. Beverly Hills and West Hollywood are just 5-10 minutes depending on where you need to go. Downtown is just 20 minutes.
Pool
The pool deck is quite impressive, though not enormous. The bar area was small but we had no trouble finding seats. The pool service was amazing--they offered to get us chairs, or a cabana, made sure we found seats at the bar, etc. The bartenders were fantastic, and really enjoyed chatting with people at the bar. The other patrons were also quite friendly, and we met a number of them in our short 2 round time at the bar!
Overall
Overall, we loved our stay--despite not loving the dark room with only one window. The room was very comfortable, as it turned out, and the hotel service and amenities were tremendous. We cannot wait until the hotel completes its renovation and improves its interior design and space allocation/lighting issues--supposedly lightening up the decor throughout.
And despite having a $150 pet fee, the hotel never charged us. Of course, everyone said they loved Macallan and hoped we would bring him back up with us on our next visit.
Sep 28, 2017, 6:03 pm
Oct 2, 2017, 9:50 pm
I came across the following issues:
Lack of cleanliness: Uncleaned spills on carpet and fur on bed - not stains as could easily be cleaned off. Human hairs in bed and towels.
Poor room maintenance: Both sets of spotlights buzzed so loudly as to be disturbing even when watching TV. One of two bedside lights broken. Severe interference on telephone. Scribbles all over the room service menu. In room clock one hour out (dating from March change?)
Unreliable service: I received a pre-arrival email asking for requests, but my response was ignored. When I chased it up in person at the Concierge desk, this did not seem a surprise. On arrival my luggage was collected from my car but then they forgot to bring up to my room, so I had to call down after 30min. At the pool I was recommended a drink in a coconut, but it turned out they had run out. Rather than tell me I had to go to the bar myself 30min later to find this out. I asked for an alternative to be sent to me back at my chair, but it was then just left on the bar for another 10min. There didn't appear to be a doorman at 7am when leaving, with all the staff just looking on as I struggled to get 2 large suitcases through the non-automatic door by myself until one actually fell over.
While you can never tell whether a hotel is following Starwood's Best Available Room policy for Platinums I was skeptical that this hotel is following it given that 4 out of 5 categories up to base suite were still showing at 11pm of my check-in.
Nobody else here has reported such a stinking review and I already have another stay booked 2 weeks from now so I'm going to hope it was a once off. In the meantime this is going to be my first complaint to my Ambassador.
Oct 16, 2017, 9:46 am
It's a good looking hotel with a cool pool area and a great restaurant in Bazaar. When they're on form it's a place I'd be happy to go back to.
May 2, 2018, 12:50 am
Any tips for any requests I could make to get the best room - i.e. whether I want a higher or lower floor, which way I might want to face, etc? Also, the only points availability they had was for a Premier King, which is supposedly a step up from their standard king room, but I can't figure out what the difference is. Even the square footage is the same. Thoughts?
Looking forward to trying the restaurant for one meal, but other than that, what's in the area for a quick bite if I don't want a fancy sit-down meal?