The Darling G and I stayed here on Friday 25 April, as part of her birthday celebrations.
The hotel is an interesting mix - they’ve got it almost right, but we found there were a few less-than-positive notes which were surprising, though they didn’t spoil the overall experience.
The room was smaller than we expected, but nicely finished in a dark red. The fixtures and fittings were all of a high quality, but with the small size of the room it was a little cluttered. Aveda shampoos and the like were a lovely quality touch.
Unfortunately, the bed wasn’t particularly comfortable - having spent the previous night in the Marriott County Hall, we both found the bed far too hard, and neither of us slept particularly well. Additionally, the bath-plug didn’t work properly and got stuck, almost causing a flooded bathroom. And while most of the fixtures were of lovely quality, it was surprising that the room kettle was actually an aging, dirt-cheap Travelodge type plastic thing, which really didn’t go with the overall ambience.
Oh, and there was no bottle-opener in the minibar.
On arrival, the room itself was far too hot, but the air-conditioning made short work of that. The room itself was pretty quiet, especially considering it was on the ground floor, right on Ixworth Place.
We were staying on the ‘myromance’ package, which included a bottle of Laurent Perrier champagne, chocolates, massage oil and an ostrich feather. I suppose the ostrich feather is merely an erotic touch - it would have been kinky if it were the whole ostrich!
We eschewed the Continental breakfast on the Saturday morning, choosing instead to have a full English, which was excellent. That said, for £18 it needed to be good!
One small thing that I found intensely irritating was the addition of a ‘Gratuity’ onto everything in the hotel. Simply buying a Scotch in the bar had £1 added onto the already steep cost - and this was done automatically. The drink itself was also expensive - a Scotch and Coke at myhotel Chelsea actually cost almost as much (£8 including service) as a Vodka Martini at the Marriott! That’s not right, guys - sort it out.
There was a slight cock-up on the bill on checkout - the bar had actually added the bottle of champagne as an additional cost (plus a further £6 ‘Gratuity’ for it), when it was supposedly included in the room rate. However, the Reception staff were quick to resolve that for me.
While it was well-placed for the Kings Road (and there’s also a fantastic Argentinian restaurant called Gaucho close by, more on that later), at £239 I can’t really say it was particularly good value - the much larger, and more impressively equipped Marriott room was only £10 more for the night.
Overall, this is a lovely little boutique hotel, and one of those quirky places that sounds great and looks fantastic until you really get up-close and examine it in depth. There’s nothing really wrong with it - it just doesn’t quite live up to its own hype.
35 Ixworth Place
London
SW3 3QX
Tel: 020 7225 7500
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