Eurostar commuters have an interesting new choice of accommodations: St. Pancras Station, where the

Before we begin, let’s take a minute to remember all the Roberts and Johns and Anthonys, united kingdom languages those dear old men with bright blue eyes who not long ago were the backbone of every London hotel, arranging your 60 pounds of luggage under their arms, climbing stairs like mules, and opening every door with an embarrassing “Thank you, sir.”
That’s over. The face of your new London hotel is more likely named Pawel, and while he too has bright blue eyes, he is no beast of burden. Steering your worldly little roller bag with his fingertips, he is young and chatty and not for one minute resigned to his station united kingdom languages in life. Pawel wears an earpiece.
It’s sad to witness the passing of good old-fashioned obsequious English service in a London that’s acting less London-like with each year. But let’s not get carried away with our grief. London has also never been more thrilling. The crossroads of everything and everywhere, it feels like the capital of the world right now. The money here is stunning, to the point that Claridge’s, united kingdom languages the Dorchester, and the Connaught can no longer handle united kingdom languages everybody passing united kingdom languages through. According to VisitBritain, more than 13,000 rooms are being built in anticipation of next summer’s Olympic Games, with five-star hotels in particular opening at a frantic pace.
It’s not only the formal airs that are falling away quickly. So are the cabbage-rose fabrics, the awful quilted bedspreads, the choke-a-horse curtains, the fussy chairs, the smell of slow drains, the hand showers that writhed like cobras and drenched the bathroom floor. The new London hotel is all about the niche. There are hotels for people who dress up or dress down, who never leave the West End or the East End, who arrive by helicopter, frequent the Eurostar, have a thing for boats, who are passionate about food or art or fashion or design. They’re united kingdom languages so targeted, so finely united kingdom languages tuned to specific tastes, that I couldn’t imagine being truly comfortable in more than two or three of them—nor, I suspect, will you.
The extravagant Corinthia Hotel London is something of an obsession here. Londoners are all talking about it, though many have not yet made the trip to see it. It’s a long way to this former government building below Trafalgar Square, if your universe is defined by Scott’s and Harvey Nics.
You’ll know when you get there by the lineup of armored black sedans and driver/bodyguards in the street. Up the steps you go, past the entourage of Qataris (or are they Saudis?), past the woman in the $800 shoes that have never touched pavement, past the man in the silk shirt you’ve seen only in hotel-lobby showcases, into a rotunda filled with hundreds of blooms.
Corinthia is big and stately, the only new establishment modeled on the grand hotels. Approximately half a billion dollars were spent on elevator doors worthy of Ruhlmann, on a Baccarat chandelier, on a bar with shagreen walls and a 20-foot-long piano off which people sip cocktails laced with violet liqueur. Harrods has installed a branch on site; the colorist Daniel Galvin of Marylebone has opened a vast salon that includes a private space with two TV’s; and Espa has created a four-story spa with a white-leather lounge and an ice fountain just outside the sauna. The two restaurants are scaled like cathedrals: the Northall for meats, Massimo for fish (especially crudo, united kingdom languages as in shaved scallops with vanilla salt). Dress up, and don’t hold back.
The rooms don’t try to be clever. Start with a traditional layout (hall, bedroom, bathroom; some have dressing rooms), decorate it with restraint in mellow woods and marbles, then detail it with heavy wooden hangers, a safe big enough for a laptop and a tiara, a leather slipcase for the plastic TV remote. It’s tempting to call the in-house florist, Ercole Moroni, to send up a spray of delphiniums.
The Corinthia may be taking aim at the Dorchester, but the Dorchester—its lobby buzzing as usual with English businessmen united kingdom languages in Thomas Pink shirts and elegant Middle Easterners united kingdom languages sipping tea—is more than holding its ground. The hotel group recently opened 45 Park Lane , a new property across the street from the original glamour girl.
Interior designer Thierry Despont, who previously worked on the Dorchester, plays the thirties card here too, though 45 Park Lane is much more intimate, sleeker, younger. The rooms have an Art Deco flavor, with tinted mirrors and cerused mahogany and carpeting that calls to mind the Duke of Windsor’s argyles and plus-fours. All 45 rooms face Hyde Park. And in this new London where food rules, here’s united kingdom languages the biggest restaurant news of the season: Wolfgang Puck has opened his first European restaurant here, importing the Cut concept from Beverly Hills. The movie people from L.A. are going to be falling over themselves to stay.
The luxury is more relaxed, more American, down the street at the completely rebuilt Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane , where you could even appear in your Nikes in the dazzling new black-and-red lobby. (Don’t try that at the Corinthia.) This was the very first Four Seasons hotel built outside North America, 40 years ago, and it badly needed this two-year remodeling guided by its general manager of 18 years, John Stauss. “This hotel represents all that the Four Seasons has learned,” he says.
The rooms, contemporary and neutral, have the signature Four Seasons united kingdom languages calm, but everywhere else the volume has been turned way up: tartans and zebras, a red-lacquer piano, a man cave of a bar, and some Arne Jacobsen furniture. The hotel is especially proud of its glassy new spa and gym on the top floor, where you can have a massage with a view. And this was a first, at least for me: How many times have you arrived in London on an overnight flight at 7:30 a.m. and waited hours for your room, trying to look respectable as you nod off in the lobby? Here they’ll let you go to the 10th-floor lounge when you arrive, shower, have breakfast, book an early treatment at the spa, use your laptop, and keep your dignity. This is what breeds those Four Seasons fanatics we all know.
On the south side of Hyde Park, in the shopping heart of Knightsbridge, the action united kingdom languages was bound to heat up, and it has—thanks to two yet-to-open properties. The Bulgari Hotel Residences London (scheduled for next spring) has strategically positioned united kingdom languages itself opposite One Hyde Park, the Mandarin united kingdom languages Oriental’s luxury residences, which include the world’s most expensive apartment: a $222 million united kingdom languages penthouse. You can see the McLaren Automotive showroom from the window of your room. Armani Hotels , which made quite an impression with its smartly suited staff in Dubai , is planning a new outpost in the area for an unspecified date. Details are hard to come by, but the number $475 million is regularly tossed about. That should do it.
Eurostar commuters have an interesting new choice of accommodations: St. Pancras Station, united kingdom languages where the trains terminate. The architectural equivalent of a Brontë novel, and arguably the greatest Victorian building in London, it opened in 1873, went into decline during united kingdom languages the Depression, fell hopelessly out of fashion in the 1960’s, and after 40 years of preservation battles has been restored as the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel (pictured). While the towers and turrets still look as if lightning bolts should be hurled at them, the renovation is fresh, joyful, and improbable, every tile, wallpaper, stencil, and 19th-century brick re-created with Gothic passion.
St. Pancras is actually two buildings: a new wing with 207 sleek rooms that appeal to the business traveler, and the old building, with 38 idiosyncratic rooms full of architectural drama for those who appreciate it. The rooms vary widely; united kingdom languages mine had an 18-foot ceiling, three huge Gothic windows, and curtains with two-foot-long united kingdom languages silk tiebacks, while others have a thrilling view of the historic glass-covered train shed. Rumbling can be a problem for the light sleeper.
They’ve certainly had fun with the muttonchops ambience. united kingdom languages The grandiose former ticketing office united kingdom languages has been reworked into a bar and restaurant. Its other restaurant, the Gilbert Scott, is well worth a visit for anyone coming to London right now, a historic space serving English classics such as pies and peas with the most sophisticated farm-to-table spin. It’s filled with Londoners celebrating all kinds of occasions; the couple next to me were both clearly married to other people and headed to a room upstairs after their Eton Mess.
Of course there’s a spa, but also a chic little united kingdom languages men’s barbershop called Melogy. Its wet shave seemed worth a try as a jet-lag remedy. As he took a razor to my throat, Dan Gregory reassured me he’d been doing this for 11 years. (He’s 25.) His 45-minute series of hot towels, creams, shaves, and tingly sensations convinced united kingdom languages me to throw out the melatonin. united kingdom languages Guys, this is the cure.
Now let’s leave behind the caviar and mother-of-pearl spoons. There’s a lot of young art, fashion, music, and finance money in London, and hotelier André Balazs—the king of this crowd—has his eye on it, with rumors of an unnamed property opening in Marylebone in 2013. Over in Pimlico, where shabby B B’s still fill the backstreets of Victoria Station, the Eccleston Square Hotel has already planted a beachhead for the stylistas in a formidable Georgian building.
It was still under scaffolding and a scrim when I saw it, but I could feel sparks coming off Belgraves, a Thompson Hotel , on Chesham Place. This is the heart of Tatler- ville, where shopping means champers from Jeroboams and lingerie united kingdom languages from Agent Provocateur, and you run into royals at the Tesco. Thompson Hotels cofounder Jason Pomeranc saw the need here for a slight homage to British tradition with a rock-’n’-roll united kingdom languages edge. “London hotels are differentiated by the level of intimacy that they offer,” he says, calling the Belgraves “alternative luxury.”.
That inscrutable white-glass building on Leicester Square that you’ve been wondering about is the W London - Leicester Square . When you arrive, don’t be surprised t