The renovation, by David Chipperfield Architects, was extensive but faithful to Saarinen’s original designs. Ground-floor office walls were taken down, opening the space into a grand lobby and expanding its signature diagrid ceiling. The windows and Portland stone facade got a careful restoration, but everything on the upper floors was removed and turned into 144 rooms (all of them suites) fit for a different kind of visiting VIP.
There are many of those. On my first day at the hotel, the elevator doors opened to reveal a butler carrying a stack of green leather trunks embossed with a golden palm tree and swords: the emblem of the Saudi royal family. I asked a staffer if I’d seen what I thought I’d seen. “That’s not the only royal family in the house right now,” they responded.
Excellence in the smallest details
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Anyone visiting London soon — royals or otherwise — should want to stay at the Chancery. At a time when luxury hotels have become complacent, predictable and priced well beyond reason, Rosewood has managed to avoid falling into those traps. Its latest outpost excels not only in its biggest statements but also in its smallest details.
Let it be said that a room at the Chancery doesn’t come cheap. The lowest weekday rates I could find in January, a month when prices for London hotels are typically low, clocked in around US$1,400 ($1,813). Yet the refinement of the overall experience makes that sum feel warranted.
In my suite, the complimentary amenities included a brass bar cart piled with crystal glassware and a large decanter filled with enough apple- and chai-infused Negroni to supply a party. There was a custom leather-wrapped Nespresso machine capable of making flat whites and cappuccinos on demand. There were two mini-fridges stocked with the UK equivalent of Erewhon juices and bottles of locally sourced milk, plus three separate platters of confections from the pastry team.
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In the bathroom, I marvelled at a pair of recycled-leather Dopp kits filled to the brim with things you can bring home, including a full-size tube of cardamom-scented lotion by a Somerset beauty brand called Never Go Alone that typically doesn’t sell to the general public. (The leather bags are up for grabs, too.) Even the closets contained delightful surprises, such as lint rollers covered in custom leather sheathing. At night, for turndown, a black lacquer and gold leaf tray would appear with a porcelain teapot, a silver carafe of hot water and all the necessary accoutrements for an evening brew.
The Chancery competes most directly with Claridge’s and the Connaught — Mayfair neighbours and two of the world’s best hotels — but also with a bevvy of pricey London newcomers such as the Emory, the Peninsula and the Raffles London at the OWO. (The latter shares a historic connection, having once served as Winston Churchill’s old war offices.) Entry-level pricing at some of these properties has famously pushed US$2,000 per night, though London has seen so many luxury openings that the oversupply has started to bring down prices. It’s not just that the hotels are expensive; it’s also that the price tags often don’t correspond to the value they offer. And that’s not only in London — it’s everywhere.
I stayed in two hotels before and after the Chancery, in Marrakesh and Rome, both with similarly priced rooms, around US$1,500. One had a faltering electrical system, so my phone could charge only from one outlet, far away from the bed; the other was so small that there wasn’t a single place to hang a long dress, and the only window faced a wall.
These examples speak to the many problems plaguing luxury hotels, old and new: They’re hard to build, thanks to a scarcity of prime real estate, and prohibitively expensive to maintain given their surprisingly small margins. (It’s common for five-stay properties to rake in less than 10% in profit, consultants have told me over the years. Budget chains often make three times as much because of their low overhead.) Labour is another issue: Talented staff have been hard to find and retain since the pandemic. Yet the overwhelming demand for luxury travel means these hotels can still charge eye-popping rates and fill their rooms, even if guests leave feeling somewhat extorted.
The Chancery avoids some of these issues by being new, but also through smart service and design. Even the smallest rooms are sumptuous and brimming with generous amenities, whereas at some competing hotels, the experience is vastly different, depending on the room.
Cosy like a cocoon
Considering that the facade of the building is so severe — it feels as if you’re walking into a courthouse — the inside of the Chancery feels like a cocoon. The lobby atrium glows with spiralling golden chandeliers. Shades of burgundy and walnut wood soften the space. Surfaces are laden with overflowing floral displays: stems of delicate pink bells and towering British beech on my visit.
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In corners that flank the main lobby area are three restaurants: Jacqueline, a tea and pastries spot themed after the Kennedy doyenne; Tobi Masa, an omakase sushi joint that will open fully in January; and Serra, an all-day dining concept where breakfast is served. Several more restaurants fill the building’s ground floor, including a grab-and-go place called GSQ and an outpost of New York’s cultishly beloved Italian spot Carbone. A restaurant by local legend Ruth Rogers is also on the way. That’s a lot of options for 144 rooms.
There are nods to the building’s history in the art. My favourite pieces are two Peter Blake collages of vintage Americana displayed together on the third floor, near the directory signage that points toward the “west wing.” But there’s little trace of the high-stakes decision-making that used to happen here. Security personnel thoroughly decommissioned the building when it ceased to serve as the US Embassy. All that was left, a hotel spokesperson tells me, were traces of a lead line and air filtration system used to seal off a panic room on the third floor.
The rooms that exist here now start at a generous 570 square feet, giving them enough space for beds that aren’t “king” but rather “emperor” size. My suite is more than double that footprint, with a dining table for six and a dozen window panels making up two walls in the living room. The blackout curtains close with the push of a button.
The obsessiveness over the design goes beyond what you’d expect: Rosewood was responsible not just for the interiors but also for planting a perimeter of trees around Grosvenor Square, for which it exclusively chose nonallergenic varieties, to ensure the comfort of its guests. It makes for a beautiful, leafy view from all those windows.
That doesn’t mean the hotel is flawless. Breakfast is pricey and mediocre — for US$20 the two poached eggs I got on avocado toast came with still-runny whites and what seemed like store-bought guacamole. I pined for what the Brits call “filter coffee” and what guests from the US or the Middle East just call “coffee.” There was only espresso. (GSQ, which has street pricing and great pastries, was a welcome alternative.)
Based on what I overheard, other guests had different bones to pick, including that the gym, while stunning, required wellness mavens to fight over a single weight bench. Good luck even getting there. The fitness centre is attached to the basement spa, and finding it involves a hunt to locate a poorly marked elevator bank on the building’s south side. Separately, I couldn’t quite understand why, every time I ran the sink, the sound of clanking would emanate from behind the walls.
No matter. People are begging for a chance to get into the Chancery. The rooms are fully sold out across solid stretches of October and November; there’s a rumoured 5,000-person waitlist to get into Carbone, which takes reservations up to four weeks in advance; and the rooftop Eagle Bar has Londoners pleading with the bouncer to be let in just for a look-see. (Pro tip: The drinks at Tobi Masa are better than the ones upstairs.)
The buzz is warranted. At a time when luxury hotels are oversupplied in London and underdelivering in many major cities, the Chancery has shot to the highest ranks of the world’s great stays. For all the hype around the building’s legacy as the former home of the US Embassy, it stands out less for what it once was than for what the luxury industry should aspire to be today: thoughtful, obsessively detailed and an experience unto itself. — Bloomberg
