I’m intrigued by what makes hotels tick, what they want to be, who they want to stay there – and what they think their perfect guests want, or need. There’s an awful lot of hotels that don’t care, so long as they pay for the room, that’s all that matters. Then there’s the ones that serve only to feed an architect, or interior designer’s throbbing ego. There’s many that choose their ideal guest, then pander to their curious whims – often neglecting those who don’t meet the photofit.
I’ve posed in front of a pink mirror, in my bathrobe, with a Fender Telecaster round my neck, blasting the opening chords from Smells Like Teen Spirit from a mini-Marshall amp. I’ve seen skateboards, pets, tattoos and sex toys on room service menus. And I’ve danced to rare Prince album tracks being played on the suite’s rickety old turntable. Some are gimmicks, others are strokes of genius – the majority are smokescreens for the fact that the hotel just doesn’t do the things they should, as well as they should.
When Gordon Campbell Gray bought the Edwardian Inveresk House in January 1996, and reopened it as One Aldwych in July 1998, it was instantly lauded as a game changer; many threw the ‘boutique’ tag at it, and over the next few years it really provided a template for what luxury hotels in London should be. It did the right stuff well, really well. It was a classically grand hotel in the truest mold, not really ‘boutique’ at all – and, almost 15 years later, it’s still ticking away, doing the same things the way it should. This is a hotel, not a vanity project, a real bloody hotel.
Grandeur is in One Aldwych’s DNA; located in a beautiful granite Edwardian building – built in 1907 and designed by The Ritz’s architects – the former home to the Morning Post is imposing from the moment you shuffle into its expansive lobby. The clientele are not the sort of people I want to spend too much time with – suits, lots of suits – but when we enter the room, I realise it’s the hotel itself I want to be spending time with.
There’s mini-TVs in the bathroom, fresh flowers and fruit daily – and everything is meticulously clean (something that even some of the ‘hippest’ hotels in town continue to struggle with). It’s like walking into the apartment of a billionaire obsessive compulsive. And I don’t really want to walk back out.
Should I choose to do so, I’d have a quite staggering 18m lap pool at my disposal, along with the usual fitness and therapy malarkey – I’d even find a cinema that runs a Martini Movies programme, in association with Grey Goose. There is, of course, two highly-rated restaurants and a slick bar – serving up phenomenal cocktails, I might add – in the aforementioned expansive lobby. There’s over 400 pieces of contemporary art and sculpture dotted around the place too. You can almost feel as though you are that billionaire.
We’re dining out in Soho though, so opt to stay in the room. We unpack completely, even though we’re here for just one night – it feels that good. I lounge around on the perfectly hued bespoke furniture, silks and Frette linen, popping grapes into my mouth like a Roman general. So, yes, I’m fascinated by curious projects from cutting-edge designers, get thoroughly excited about quirks, hip-bars and forward-thinking restaurants. And, I love some of the amenities (some of them), but when a hotel just does the things you need it to well. Effortlessly, and with a beaming smile on their face… you rarely need anything else.
