Why book?
One of the very smartest hotel addresses in London (and a newly anointed CNT Triple Crown hotel), The Connaught Hotel’s energy crackles and fizzes from morning through night, with coming and goings, reunions, a hum of excitement, and a permanent sense of occasion.
Set the scene
In the welcoming, flower-garlanded reception hall, lashings of dark woods are polished to perfection, marble gleams, and a grandiosely solid gold-leaf-gilded mahogany staircase twists heavenward. A 3,000-plus-piece private collection distracts and bedazzles, lining the famed staircase and every other space besides. There’s a Graham Sutherland landscape here, a Barbara Hepworth lithograph or green-bronze Nick Fiddien piece there. There’s a Louise Bourgeois in The Red Room; a water installation by Tadao Ando outside the front door; and Damien Hirst in the Hélène Darroze flagship restaurant.
The rooms
A blend of heritage and contemporary creature comforts, the Connaught’s rooms are split between the original building and the 2007 Connaught Wing. They promise style, a soft landing, and, generally, a butler. As with the rest of the hotel, rooms and suites blend extreme comfort and modern convenience with antique beauty, atmosphere, and brilliant art. Mini bars are disguised in Chinoiserie cabinets; bed headboards are hand-embroidered; and the toto bathroom seats in the white-marble bathrooms exude a gentle heat. Even the hotel slippers are turbo-charged—chunkier and softer than average. The 2024-renovated gray-green or storm-cloud-blue Coburg Suites are the newest. Off the broad corridors of the original building, they have views over Carlos Place, with shining parquet and deep carpets underfoot, painted paneling, pretty cornices, delft-encrusted chimneypieces, heavy draped curtains, and original art.
Food and drink
Eating and drinking well is at the heart of a stay here. Since 2017, Jean-Georges at The Connaught, led by the renowned New York–based French chef, has been the fixture for informal and eclectic pan-Asian and pan-European cuisine with a French accent. The harmonious oval space overlooking Mount Street has a soothing palette of palest blues and grays, juxtaposed with Jean-Michel Othoniel’s sunny, stained-glass windows. It’s also where the astoundingly good breakfasts are served.
The Connaught Grill is a contemporary iteration of the 1955 Grill, loved by Bond author Ian Fleming. Spanish executive chef Ramiro Lafuente Martinez presides over the refined meat-fest menu by Jean-Georges Vongerichten—the freshest of oysters, caviar, and beef tartares, sharing steaks, chicken liver parfaits, and Brixham Dover sole. Meanwhile, three-Michelin-starred Hélène Darroze at The Connaught is the headline affair wrapped up in spacious interiors by Pierre Yovanovitch, salmon-hued with soft blonde-timber panelling. Seasonally grounded, it’s an evolving feast of progressive Frenchness, from Brittany pigeon to a whole menu dedicated to vol-au-vents.
The Connaught’s watering holes are equally iconic. The Connaught Bar (by David Collins Studio) is one of the best drinking spots in London, with ultra-attentive and jolly service, their famous Martini trolley, and conversation and excitement bouncing off its silver-leafed walls.
The neighborhood/area
The Connaught curves around the corner of Carlos Place just off Berkeley Square, in the chichi enclave of Mayfair Village, cheek by jowl with London’s nicest restaurants and shops. This is the otherworldly London of a Richard Curtis film.
Worth it?
Yes—you come here to be amidst beauty, to enjoy some of the best hotel menus in London—by the likes of Hélène Darroze and Jean-Georges Vongerichten—to feel part of a celebratory crowd, and to have your head turned by art.
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