Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park London review
Steeped in lavish British tradition and infused with intriguing global touches, this Hyde Park hotel offers up endless attractions.
It’s hard to imagine going to a city as magnificent as London and not leaving your hotel. At a property like Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, the many comforts of its sumptuous guestrooms and facilities make it tempting to give the city a miss.
Housed in a grand former gentlemen’s residential club built in 1889, the hotel is ideally located between busy Knightsbridge Rd and, as the name would suggest, sprawling Hyde Park.
Thanks to a ruling by King George V, no commercial signage is permitted on the park side and a gate into the hotel remains off limits to anyone without royal heritage. To that end, the main entrance is at 66 Knightsbridge, where a clutch of red-coated footmen greet guests with a warmth belying the chilly London air during my visit.
Still fresh from a significant overhaul completed in 2019, the hotel’s interiors are looking elegantly spick and span. A foyer fireplace crackles its own toasty welcome, and charming guest relations manager Pim Jaisutti ushers me to my fourth-floor Hyde Park Suite. The hotel group prides itself on not only fulfilling a guest’s needs but anticipating them. So after more than 24 hours of flying and airline food, it’s a pleasure to find a big bowl of fresh fruit waiting in what is one of the prettiest suites I have seen.
My lodgings comprise a spacious salon with leather-topped desk, lounges and a thoughtful reading selection. The marble bathroom is stocked with Diptyque amenities and adorned with a Portoro Oro stone frieze, while the enormous bedroom features a wall of mirror-panelled wardrobes and a fireplace.
The furnishings and colour palette (emerald green, grey, gold and pale timbers) are the work of award-winning interior designer Joyce Wang, who drew inspiration for all of the hotel’s 181 guestrooms and suites from Hyde Park. The bedroom carpet references fallen leaves, lamps in fluted glass are shaped like acorns, and artworks feature birds and horses. Indeed, every morning the King’s horses trot back and forth providing quite the spectacle; the clip-clop of their hoofs is a delightful alternative to the alarm clock.
While the king bed and plush sofas invite a nap, something better than sleep awaits on the labyrinthine lower floor. The Spa at Mandarin Oriental is part of a comprehensive wellness offering that includes a 17m indoor lap pool, gym and fitness studio, with one-on-one personal training available. Guests can also hire equipment such as Technogym bikes and benches for use in their rooms.
Despite being something of a spa sceptic, I am convinced by therapist Monica that a massage and facial should be compulsory after long-haul travel. Other options include full-body exfoliation, mud baths, oil rituals and light treatments. Shoulders loose and energy levels restored, I could almost head outside for a spot of shopping or sightseeing but there is in-house dining to consider.
Awarded two Michelin stars, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is an airy, elegant space overlooking Hyde Park. The view is glorious but it’s no match for the menu, which pays homage to Blumenthal’s fascination with historic gastronomy. Each offering is dated with the year in which the recipe was formulated, such as roast halibut and green sauce from 1440, meat fruit of mandarin from 1500 and hay-smoked salmon from 1730. The presentation is, as anyone familiar with Blumenthal’s style would expect, completely unexpected.
For the less adventurous, there’s The Rosebery, a quintessentially English venue where patrons can take tea and people-watch from the most fashionable part of Knightsbridge Rd. No fewer than 29 varieties of loose-leaf tea are on offer, along with freshly baked scones and delicate sandwiches of curried crayfish or Scottish smoked salmon.
The Rosebery also serves breakfast, lunch and dinner along with champagne cocktails until 9pm, perhaps as a warm-up for the fashionable late-night Mandarin Bar, where caviar is a menu staple and the horseshoe-shaped service area is backdropped by a striking glass wall.
Early risers can fuel up at Breakfast by Mandarin Oriental in another street-level room with views over the parklands. Finally there’s The Aubrey, which hosts “an eccentric Japanese izakaya experience” in a series of moody rooms under Knightsbridge Rd. With its live DJ soundtrack, black-clad wait staff and funky antique-shop decor, it’s a world apart from the hushed tones of The Rosebery. At first glance, the menu appears fairly standard, with a range of sushi and sashimi, but this is no ordinary Japanese restaurant. Delicious cocktails are conjured from ingredients such as soap bark, wasabi liqueur and smoked sakura cherry perfume, to wash down mushroom gyoza, charcoal chicken karaage and seaweed salad.
Sated and well slept, the time has come to venture beyond the hotel doors into what resembles a life-size Monopoly board. In one direction is Park Lane and Oxford St, in another Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, and on the way I pass Kings Cross and Marylebone stations. Buckingham Palace is a 15-minute walk away, Harrods just five, and Sloane St with its high-end shops and fashionistas even closer. In fact, most of London’s major attractions are within walking distance.
Among all the majestic buildings and monuments is the serenity of Hyde Park, home to rose gardens, playgrounds, a bird sanctuary and the Princess Diana Memorial. It is the perfect combination for work, rest and play.
In the know
Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park is at 66 Knightsbridge, London. The hotel provides complimentary return airport transfers with selected rooms, including the Hyde Park Suite; from about £4000 ($6980) a night; superior rooms from £600 a night.
Robyn Ironside was a guest of Visit Britain and British Airways.