Category Archives: Luxury Hotel in London

A Weekend Afternoon Tea Obsession

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I spotted an interesting piece of news this week. The Houses of Parliament is entering the world of Afternoon Tea. I know, sounds like a gripping movie trailer doesn’t it. Stick with me. Afternoon Tea is not as simple as it sounds. You might be thinking it’s about having a cup of tea in the afternoon. It isn’t.

This ritual is just as complex, long winded and intricate as a Japanese tea ceremony. Although there’s less bowing involved and you don’t have to sit on the floor.
To give you a clue to the complexity here is an extract from the House of Commons press release:
“The chefs have created a tempting array of savouries such as citrus marinated Scottish salmon with cream cheese, lemon curd and chive on a mini bagel, and free range egg mayonnaise with watercress on wholemeal bread. Room should be saved for the sweet course which includes sultana scones with strawberry jam and Devonshire clotted cream, and Valronha chocolate delice. Beverages are a selection of teas or freshly brewed coffee.”

And this is for a tea that costs £19.95 which makes it the budget airline of the Afternoon Tea world. Cheap as chips. To give you an idea of the lengths hotels go to to give their Afternoon Tea the edge I discovered a 24 Karat Gold one recently. During which you drink Champagne with gold in it and eat gold leaf jelly and gold leaf and strawberry tart. Guess what’s sprinkled on top… you guessed it, gold flakes.

Did those brave frontier Americans really push west into uncharted territory risking life and scalp to find gold just so that Brits could eat it? Yes, it turns out.
If staff from top hotels ever gather in Trafalgar Square and have a massive brawl it’ll be who has the best Afternoon Tea that they’ll be fighting about.

Thankfully the Tea Guild (yes tea has a guild) created an awards ceremony 28 years ago to stave off the requirement for fisty cuffs.
The judges follow very strict guidelines, I’m told, covering the décor, the appropriateness of the crockery, staff attitude, tea knowledge, efficiency of service, overall ambience and how the tea itself is served.

Guess who received an Award of Excellence, you’ll be pleased to hear, a Small Luxury Hotel of the World -The Capital Hotel & Apartments.

HULONCH_38405333_The_Capital_Afternoon_Tea_Compressed_431x288

So there you have it. If you want the very best Afternoon Tea in London don’t go to the House Of Commons, head to The Capital Hotel. Hmm, I’m feeling a little peckish. See you next week!

Bank Holiday Monday in the UK

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Next Monday is a bank holiday in the UK.
So I, along with the vast majority of the working population, will not be at work on a day of the week that we would ordinarily spend in the office.
Pleasant, but no big deal. Right? It’s only one day.
Wrong.
It is a big deal. It’s bigger than a big deal, it is a MASSIVE deal and Londoners – who decide not to go away to a lovely little boutique hotel somewhere – will collectively lose their minds, forget that work will ever come again, and embrace the day like it’s their last.
I’ll be one of them.
The streets, bars and parks of the English capital will be rammed with, traditionally reserved Londoners behaving like it’s spring break in one of those American teen movies that my man friends like to believe is more documentary than fictional nonsense.
(Just in case any men read this I should say to them: “Of course those films are an accurate depiction. Approximately 95% of American school girls are, indeed, in their early 20s and look like models – everyone knows that!”)
Anyway. Bank Holiday Monday. In short, it’s utterly utterly brilliant. Unless it rains.
In which case plan B kicks in and then it’s rubbish.
Everyone gets in their automobile and turns the city into an extended IKEA car park full of road rage and regret.
But they won’t give up once they’ve started the journey. Because we English love an angry queue. Hours later the sales of tea lights and cheap/pointless household furnishings have rocketed, the Swedes are laughing and we all make a promise we won’t keep – to never get in our cars again on a bank holiday Monday.
The good news is the weather forecast is looking promising. So you probably don’t have to worry about getting lost in IKEA following the arrows around that fly trap of a shop.
I’ll be in Dukes Bar, arguably home to the best cocktails in the city, with three girlfriends enjoying, no doubt, more cocktails than is entirely sensible.

HULHRDU_43002147_Hotel_Facade_600x399So prepare yourself for an incoherent and potentially grumpy blog post next week. I’ll be writing it on Tuesday morning with a large cup of coffee and a sore head for company.

January Blues.

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It’s not really the done thing in January but I did it anyway. While others were in the gym, giving up wine, eating Ryvita and generally being better all round human beings I decided to buy an enormous television.

I have waited until February to share this with you in case you were a JANUARY PERSON. Capped up because JANUARY PEOPLE like to talk about their personal renaissance very loudly and smugly and everyone else has to live in an Orwellian 1984 parallel universe where we’re not allowed to mention that they do this every year and it definitely won’t last.

Anyway, now that it’s February you should be back to normal. You’ve realised that we drink wine and eat cakes because it makes us happy and that not eating any carbs is selfish because it’s the people around us that have to cope with the hungry angry person.

So, back to my 42 inch Panasonic smart TV.

TELEVISION

Despite having what is essentially a cinema at home, miraculously I haven’t become a fat four-eyed box set-addicted recluse. When I watch scary films I am a bit more scared. When I watch tennis it’s like being a ball-boy without the running. And when a nature documentary comes on I just stare open mouthed at the screen for an hour. But I still manage to function as a normal human being the rest of the time.

This took me by surprise. It took me by surprise because a hotel I was looking at online the other day told me I can’t be trusted with a television. It thinks that it must take my television away or else I will sit indoors watching it all day instead of sitting in the sunshine or looking at historic monuments.

It was a beautiful hotel but I’m afraid this lack of trust made me sad. I like to be trusted. In fact I don’t just want trust, I want temptation. I want an enormous television in the bedroom, another in the sitting room and, as I enjoyed at The Arch in London recently, I want one at the end of the bath too.

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A bath so deep my mother would never have let me run it, bubbles so high I could barely see over them, and a romantic film on the flatscreen that some tech magician has made impervious to steaming up. Now that’s a guilty pleasure I don’t want to miss however beautiful the view from the balcony.

It was the missing television alone that made me choose another hotel – find out where I chose instead next week.

#52perannum

Melissa Vinelli’s Summer Holiday Diaries

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Thanks for your tips everyone! For all you spa junkies check out this new blog www.spa-confidential.co.uk for spa news, musings and inspiration. According to them, “Relaxing is a serious business” – I couldn’t agree more!

I’m not sure if it was your description of the eucalyptus scented steam bath and wood-fired sauna, or the image of a strapping Nordic spa therapist called Hans which it conjured, but I decided to plump for Pädaste Manor on Muhu Island. With Hans in mind, I left the Chef in London and invited my friend Aurelie. A true Parisian, she’s on holiday for the whole of August too and appreciates a spot of pampering.

Reached by a 20 minute ferry ride from mainland Estonia, Muhu Island is a totally unspoilt island in the Baltic Sea. A 16th century haven, the hotel is grand but homely, and the spa offering is second to none. With the voice of Spa Confidential echoing through my mind, Aurelie and I repeated our mantra “Relaxing is a serious business” and threw ourselves into two days of rigorous spa-ing. After sweating it out in the sauna and plunging ourselves into the icy “Siberian” tub, it was time to sample the treatments. Pädaste Manor use centuries-old Estonian herbal traditions in their spa treatments – but it’s not bearded hippy territory – one of their spa packages includes a glass of Chardonnay and a hot tub session with a bottle of Laurent Perrier – my kind of Spa!

We both opted for a Scandinavian Salt Body Scrub and then The Ultimate Skin Treatment which comprised all of the below treats –

The Ultimate Skin Treatment, full day

Seawater hot tub at the bay

Rest & relax

Oatmeal & yoghurt scrub

After-treatment full body goat milk butter crème nourishing

Light lunch

Aloa vera & cucumber wrap

Rest & relax

Body & Soul, Traditional Swedish massage with essential oils

Afterwards we slung on our party dresses and had dinner at Alexander, the fine dining restaurant which opens into the gardens – D.I.V.I.N.E!

No sign of Hans though – oh well, a girl can dream!

Introducing you to Melissa Vinelli…

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Hi all,

Happy New Year!

I thought you might like to meet a very good friend of mine – Melissa Vinelli – who I bumped into at The Arch Hotel in London recently after not seeing her for years. She’s quite a character, bit of a dare-devil and likes to have fun. She gets up to mischief now and again, has had an interesting life, and now travels the world extensively, staying mainly in our Small Luxury Hotels of the World.

You will see from the letter I’ve just received from her that she’s enjoying every minute of her time since leaving her high-powered job in the City. If you’d like to know Melissa as well as I do, then follow this blog to find out what she’s up to and where in the world she’ll be next. I really dread to think!

I’m sure her tales will give you a good insight into and give you some great ideas about staying in our small, luxury hotels around the world. She’ll certainly be opting for some of the special exciting experiences that Small Luxury Hotels of the World have put together – so that could prove interesting. I just wonder what she’ll get up to?

Enjoy her travels… and her antics!

Paul

PS: Incidentally, if you want to know more about Melissa, click here>>

Dear Paul,

It was absolutely fabulous bumping into you last month in that trendy London champagne bar at The Arch Hotel. What a chic contemporary London hotel that is with its rich colours, comfy seats, high-tech rooms, and classy art. It’s so very perfect for Mummy’s lifestyle too – an exclusive city hotel where she can enjoy toasted crumpets and traditional afternoon tea in style, wonderfully located in central London.
How timely too, with me being down in the dumps (having hastily thrown in the towel at work) that you came up with that amazing suggestion that I jet off to a luxury hotel in Sri Lanka to take time out and get my thoughts together. You are a darling, you saved my sanity.

When you said it was a boutique hotel somewhere unusual, I had no idea that the holiday in the nature reserve you recommended would be so very wild. I had a fantastic time… wild parties every day. Not exactly the wild London celebrity parties we both enjoy darling, but wild as in elephant safaris, nature tours and bird watching and, would you believe, even primate safaris. I must take Daddy with me next time; he’s always looking for luxury hotels off the beaten track.

I’m rambling as usual (and now back in the UK after my thought-inspiring stay in that gem of an eco-friendly luxury hotel)… so to the point. Luxury skiing holidays – I want to head for the snow and take a last minute luxury ski break.

You know that I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie so I’ll be taking my best buddy David with me who’s as mad as a hatter on the slopes. To keep him happy, can you suggest some luxurious ski retreats in Europe and maybe unusual skiing destinations further afield, as well as luxury family ski resorts in the USA (I want to check out family friendly ski hotels for my sister Claire and her tribe).  Any information on hotels near challenging ski slopes, contemporary ski lodges and cosy ski chalets at renowned ski resorts will be great too.

Must rush. Look forward to getting your suggestions for a luxury ski holiday soonest. Thanks darling. See you.

Love Melissa

PS: Calling all skiers: Can you send me suggestions as to where I should go for my skiing break? Would love to read your comments on your personal skiing experiences too.