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Somebody needs to totally revamp the hotel rating system in London because if the Andaz can call itself a five star then this is a six. Royal Horseguards is a six. The Ritz is a seven. This is a proper 5-star hotel. This is the kind of place you’d take your partner if you were planning to propose. That’s how you really rate a great hotel: on whether it increases your chances of landing a yes.
I almost missed the front door when I was walking down Threadneedle Street and I nearly missed the reception desk as well, because it’s just a couple of bank manager-types sitting behind a table. While they’re busy taking down your details you can peer around the atrium and straight away you’ll know it’s going to be great. At the time of writing they’ve got a giant Christmas tree in the middle and everyone’s sitting around it with their wheelie suitcases waiting for their taxis, their meetings, their date, their mate – I could have rated this place a ten before I even stepped inside my room. That’s how good it is.
Inside a room at Threadneedles Hotel
Photo: londondrum.comThe room has enough space for a double bed, a three-seater sofa, an armchair, office chair, desk, coffee table, two side tables, a bedside lamp table, a TV cabinet and a couple more cabinets. The bathroom is actually bigger than most of the rooms I sleep in.
Let me have a root through the drawers and see what I can find… you get an iPod dock, a safe, a minibar (I’ll tell you the prices in a minute), sewing kit, shoe-shine kit and shoe horn, iron and ironing board, an ice box with some actual ice in it, an umbrella, a pair of slippers and a couple of dressing gowns, a hairdryer… I think that’s about it. And a waste paper bin.
Photo: londondrum.comBeing a 5-star hotel they’ve decided to leave a load of arty books on the coffee table but they’re never books that you actually want to read – they’re always highbrow stuff like ‘French Fashion In The Renaissance’ or ‘Armchair Fabrics From The 1720s’. Today I’ve got a big book about Zen and some catwalk photography by Lucian Perkins. Sometimes I think they just pick the biggest and heaviest books they can find so nobody can nick them.
Okay… now that I’ve got all that out of the way I can finally get down to the important stuff: the teabags. You get eight teabags, but unfortunately six of them are those perfume teas that you have to drink with a peg over your nose. But seeing as they also provide you with a Nespresso machine I’ll let them off.
The minibar prices aren’t too bad, provided that you stick with the soft drinks. A can of Coke is only a couple of quid and the Kit-Kat is two quid fifty. The little fun-size bottles of whiskey are £6.50, whilst a half-bottle of champagne will set you back £30 – so make sure you have something to celebrate first.
Ensuite bathroom at Threadneedles
Photo: londondrum.com
Photo: londondrum.comIn the bathroom you get a shower and a bath, enough towels to soak up the sea, and a vase of white gravel which might be bath salts but to be perfectly honest I haven’t got a clue.
I’ve just found a leaflet about massages and spas. Apparently I can order an ‘advanced performance facial for men’ which is clinically proven to combat the “harsh, ageing effects of shaving” for £65 quid. Luckily that doesn’t apply to me because I’m too lazy to shave anyway. I only shave about once a fortnight. So maybe I can go for a ‘face and body sensation’ instead, which “rapidly accelerates skin repair and restores youthful radiance”. I have just one response to that: no. It’s not happening. Not ever. No way. Not in a million years. I would honestly rather die than have a man’s facial spa.
Dinner in Marco Pierre White’s restaurant
The bar and restaurant are just about the best that you could wish for. The dining room is a big hall with red leather seats and chandeliers and it’s run by Marco Pierre White, if that means anything to you. If it doesn’t then he’s a bit like Gordon Ramsey… only scarier. You can tell it’s his place because he’s decorated it with giant black-and-white photographs of himself with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, chatting with some supermodels.
I shuffle in still half-asleep and they sit me down with a waiter who hands over a leather-bound menu with about ten pages in it (just for breakfast). I saw English Breakfast on the very first page so that was fine with me. I’ll just have one of those please, mate. Okay sir, he said. I only ever eat the breakfast in these places but you can eat all day if you want. Five minutes later he came back carrying a wagon wheel loaded up with about a tonne of food: sausages, bacon, black pudding, scrambled eggs, giant mushrooms, giant tomatoes, a rack of toast… normally I just have a bowl of cornflakes in the morning so this was like a three-course meal.
Location of the Threadneedles Hotel
Oh yeah… I nearly forgot to mention the location. You’ll find the hotel down Threadneedle Street, about two minutes from the Bank of England. The nice thing about Threadneedle Street is that it’s always heaving with people during the week because it’s in the centre of The City, but come the weekend it empties out into a ghost town. Hardly anybody lives in the City because it’s practically all offices, so if you get up early enough you can have the streets all to yourself.
You can walk around the Royal Exchange, Guildhall and St. Paul’s in the company of just a few pigeons and a few crisp packets blowing along the pavement.
So to sum it all up then… I think I’ve just found my new favourite hotel. It’s a toss-up between this one and the Royal Horseguards. (The Ritz will forever be a class apart, so it’s unfair comparing any of them to that.)
If you’re looking for a 5-star hotel that’s posh, but not posh enough to make you feel uncomfortable, then here it is.
