London Hotels Insight provides up-to-date, independent advice for your perfect stay in London. We research guest feedback, meet management and identify hotels at the top of their game.
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Rafayel Hotel
About a month ago I visited the lovely new Radisson Edwardian Guildford hotel on the day before it opened. Last week I also met the CEO of Tune Hotels, Mr Mark Lankester, who told me about the budget group’s second cheap London hotel which will shortly open in Liverpool Street. Despite the fact that each of these hotels operates in different [...]
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Back at the start of 2010, we wrote reviews of the best of London’s spas, unearthing six which we rated as better than the rest: The Dorchester Spa, So SPA at Sofitel St James, Renaissance Chancery Court Spa, Mandarin Oriental London Spa, The Berkeley Spa, Spa Studio at the Lanesborough. Now, nearly two years on, it’s [...]
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The Joan Collins way of travelling – fifteen suitcases and then the hatboxes – seems to be going out of fashion. Low cost airlines are now charging quite extortionate fees for checked luggage and luggage allowances are getting slimmer all the time, so most of us are trying to pack smarter. It’s easy to say [...]
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Hurrah! Despite what you read in the papers about reading being a dying art and Kindles taking over the world, bookworms like myself are still very much alive and kicking – and being recognised by London’s hoteliers. Here are my favourite five hotels for literature-loving guests… Swissotel The Howard Hotel The Howard Hotel in the heart of [...]
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I adore Asian food. But I also spend a good part of my life in France and so am pretty well versed in the classical traditions of western cuisine. And usually, ‘shall we have an Indian?’ is presented as an either/or choice. Not so at the Rafayel Hotel’s Banyan restaurant, where the menu has one foot in each hemisphere [...]
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It’s possible to drop several hundred quid having a decent meal in London these days. Yes, after decades cast into outer darkness, London has become the epicentre of the gastronomic world – but its new prominence has come at a price. However, impecunious foodies need not fear. There are ways of getting a very reasonably [...]
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Forget the hype about grand lobbies, posh restaurants and fancy amenities – the epitome of 5 star luxury for me is an outstanding bathroom. And I’m not referring only to the most expensive suites…if you’re paying a top-end room rate, then great bathrooms ought to come as standard. But lovely bathrooms in London hotels in [...]
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A hotel is usually a product of its location. At Rafayel on the Left Bank however, they’ve turned this idea around; they have built the hotel and are now creating the location around it. In fact, it’s one of a breed of quality London hotels in slightly edgy areas. The name is clever, evoking a [...]
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I don’t think all that often about my bed. I only really become aware of what I’m sleeping on if it’s wrong – uncomfortable, bumpy, too hard or too soft. I recently slept in one that kept trying to roll itself around me like a tube. It was horrible – I kept waking up thinking [...]
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If you want art in London, you might head to Tate Britain, the National Gallery or Sotheby’s for example. Or for something more cutting edge, you could be tempted to check out the Saatchi Gallery or Tate Modern. But you might also find your hotel to be an equally good place to find contemporary art [...]
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Think of top London hotels and I bet you’re thinking of the West End – Mayfair, Chelsea or Westminster. But a new generation of hotels is now springing up in unlikely places like Bethnal Green, Lambeth and Battersea. And while London is not a particularly dangerous city – it seems these new hotels are showing [...]
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London Hotels Insight has already featured a good selection of the most eco-friendly London hotels and it’s now time to do a recap of the very best. We’ve only listed hotels that have won rigorous external awards for their environmentally-friendly approach (such as from the Visit Britain Green Tourism Business Scheme) or have supplied us [...]
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As the clock continues to tick on the Savoy’s October 10 opening – after a delay that this blog was the first in the world to report – anticipation is growing to see exactly what delights the Old Dame has in store. Most are expecting a certain decadence within the frame of an ultra luxurious [...]
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It’s becoming more and more trendy to look for “green hotels” and it’s clear that our expectations are getting higher. But what if the question is flipped round: how green are you as a hotel guest? Since I love to feature “green hotels” on this blog, I’m sometimes approached by hotels wanting to publicise their [...]
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Regular readers will know we’re a little green-obsessed on this blog. Especially given the typical wastefulness of hotel processes, dictated as they are by the massive daily turnover of guests checking in and out. With this in mind, the mould-breaking new Rafayel Hotel was recently featured as an example very much in the “eco-luxe” camp. [...]
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The recently-opened “eco-luxe” Rafayel Hotel (or Rafayel on the Left Bank as it calls itself) in Battersea has just received its first TripAdvisor reviews. And since we love green hotels on this blog – having praised the eco award-winning Cavendish and Base2stay hotels as well as the Zetter at various times – we’ve decided to [...]
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