Visiting the Mandarin Oriental Mayfair was always going to be an interesting experience beyond the usual pleasure of a luxury hotel stay. For me – or any other Condé Nast journalist – it came with added allure: we'd been listening to the building works and watching it go up for a number of years. Mandarin Oriental Mayfair is on a prime position in Hanover Square, right across the street from Vogue House, Condé Nast HQ until the end of January this year.
Building site no more, the hotel opened in June and my husband, toddler and I were some of the the first guests to cross the threshold and walk its plush carpeted corridors. For a luxury hotel, it's very discreet and the only thing that gives it away are the smart doormen and women outside its entrance. The hotel is discreet, with a swirling green marble staircase running down to Akira Back, the main restaurant which itself is about two floors high with a glass ceiling flooding it with glorious light. The rooms are designed by Studio Indigo and ours, the Hanover Suite, had botanical, Eastern themes coming through from various wallpapers; a cherry tree blossomed behind the sofa, while the central walk-in wardrobe was wrapped in burnt gold paper with birds, branches and flowers – all of which our almost two-year-old was thrilled to point out to us.
There were special touches throughout which went above and beyond expectation; three different types of robe in the room (patterned silk, towelling or kimono), a welcome platter of exotic fruits and bunches of fresh flowers throughout the suite. The quality of materials and furnishings is one thing which you expect at a hotel like this, but the extra mile was well and truly served.
The location of Mandarin Oriental Mayfair is now only heightened by the fact it shares a square with the Elizabeth Line, meaning it's an easy hop from Heathrow and then of course, excellently places within the beating heart of London. Mayfair and its shops are next door, Marylebone just the other side of Oxford Street, Soho one direction and the entirety of west London in the other. It's a very busy area but MO Mayfair cuts a little corner of tranquility through all of that, from the cocooning feel of its decadent rooms to the spa.
As with pretty much all hotel spas in London, it can be found below ground so as to not use prime room real estate. Unlike all its competitors, certain parts of the spa, notably the corridor where the treatment rooms are found, benefit from a huge, deep light well that runs through the heart of the hotel and adds a biophilic element that only heightens the appeal. The pool is long and deep (for a hotel, at least) with loungers, a sauna, steam room and three therapy pools alongside it. There's a gym too but let's just pretend I forgot my trainers rather than avoiding it all together. Notably for anyone travelling as a family, there are no pre-ordained childrens' hours in the pool and we were welcomed as a family at any time of day which suited us.
Breakfast is served at Akira Back, the hotel's main restaurant which is run by a chef of the same name and offers a Korean and Japanese menu for lunch and dinner – and also breakfast though with more standard fare in there too. For dinner, we took a whistle stop tour of the menu, with highlights including the mushroom pizza, dynamite lobster, tacos and wagyu shortrib, all paired with excellent wines by the sommelier. It's a bright, dynamic space to dine in with a menu to match and Dosa, which offers a tasting menu of Korean food, is sure to be as brilliant.
What I hadn't expected was for such a big hotel titan to create such a personal feel but the size of Mandarin Oriental Mayfair is to its benefit and it felt like a home away from home much more than I had expected. The corridors aren't endlessly long, the spaces aren't vast and there's no giant lobby to welcome you, rather a cosy one with smiling staff and a glass of ginger kombucha to perk you up. The hotel could not have been more welcoming of our toddler, setting up a cot in our room, providing adorable amenities such as panda slippers and of course, a Ben the Mandarin Oriental teddy bear, and smiling graciously whenever they picked something off the floor for him at breakfast.
