Issue 33

It’s difficult to think of a more hotly-anticipated hotel opening than Raffles London. Not since The Rosewood opened in the old Pearl Assurance building in 2013 has the jet set waited so breathlessly to visit the capital. At that ritzy hotel in High Holborn, EPR Architects was charged with the task of turning a Grade II-listed Edwardian pile into a hotel that showcased the best of the old while adopting the very, very best of the new. The brief at Raffles, which opened in Whitehall’s The Old War Office in September, would have been almost identical.

Some other names involved at The OWO: Thierry Despont, the late, great French-American architect responsible for revitalising New York’s Statue of Liberty; Zaha Hadid Architects, which has designed a shiny metallic restaurant-pavilion in the hotel’s cobbled courtyard; and Mauro Colagreco, proprietor of Menton’s Mirazur, which, in 2019, was voted the ‘World’s Best Restaurant’. Raffles represents Colagreco’s London debut, as it does for famed Milanese seafood restaurant, Langosteria, buzzy Parisian café, Lapérouse, and cosmetic maison-to-the-stars Guerlain, which has been put in charge of the hotel’s subterranean spa (it’s large enough to accommodate a 25-metre swimming pool).

Half The OWO is given over to the hotel; the other to managed apartments, marking Raffles’ European entry into the burgeoning branded residences market. This issue’s cover provides a glimpse of what owners can expect within the 1508 London-designed pied-à-terres (former New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is said to have snapped up one of the apartments). You can go through the keyhole for yourself on page 16 of our Watches & Jewellery supplement.

The capital is in the midst of a hospitality boom. Raffles London will now go toe-to-toe with The Peninsula London, the pair of uber-hotels having opened within a fortnight of each other. The Dorchester recently dropped hundreds of millions on its first major refurbishment since the eighties; the London Hilton on Park Lane just reopened after spending vast sums of its own; while Mandarin Oriental Mayfair is slated to open this side of Christmas. Which all makes a very compelling argument for a London-based autumn staycation.

But which bolthole to choose?

Richard Brown

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