five star hotel in Mayfair
five star hotel in Mayfair

A Night at the Beaumont Hotel, Mayfair

10 Feb 2017 | Updated on: 27 Sep 2022 | By Mhairi Mann

The Beaumont opened in 2014, but you’d be forgiven for assuming the boutique hotel found its feet in 1926. Inspired by the Art Deco opulence of the Roaring Twenties, it exudes American golden age glamour from

The five-star retreat is the first hotel of Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, the renowned restaurateurs responsible for The Wolseley, The Delaunay, Brasserie Zédel, and previously The Ivy and Le Caprice. The duo has created a popular blueprint for modern design steeped in nostalgia, played out with exacting detail and worldly panache.

Set within a Grade II listed former garage on Mayfair’s Brown Hart Gardens, dark cherry wood panelling, handsome chequerboard floors and shell-back seats set the tone for a beguiling hotel that dines out on the past.

In order to create an authentic atmosphere, King conjured a fictitious backstory about an American character named Jimmy Beaumont who escaped prohibition-shackled New York to London in 1926 to open his eponymous hotel. A Jimmy Beaumont set of card games sits in each room and the 1,700-strong collection of paintings, photographs and prints has been carefully selected to support King’s immersive narrative.

Walls are lined with black and white photographs of women with fur stoles and shingle haircuts; feathered flappers and men tipping their Panama hats, boarding American Airline planes. Through this curated art collection, King captures the cultural and social rebellion of the era, wrapped up in diamonds and décolletage; speakeasies, Sidecar cocktails and Cadillacs.

A bibliophile’s delight, our suite is stacked with new and second-hand books, displayed beside antique trinkets and American memorabilia. You could easily spend all afternoon soaking in the marble bathtub or propped up against the polished Art Deco headboard, flicking through Agatha Christie and Scott Fitzgerald. The Colony Grill awaits however, so it’s downstairs for dinner to the hotel’s buzzing restaurant.

Positioned at the back of the American Bar, the restaurant is inspired by classic grill rooms of yesteryear, both in London and across the continent. American artist John Mattos’ sportive murals gallop and dive across frescoed walls, alongside caricatures of the good and great of history.

The Anglo-American, no-frills menu takes comforting classics and cooks them well: Cajun spiced swordfish, chicken pot pie, steak tartare and all kinds of chops. Portions are hearty, served on monogrammed plates with sides in silver cups. Leave room for the bespoke ice cream sundae; a simple yet glorious pleasure, dripping in hot fudge sauce.

While the image of Fitzgerald propped up at the American Bar is an easy one, there is nothing grandiose about The Beaumont. Corbin and King are particularly cautious about overpowering guests and opulence is tempered by warmth and bolstered by faultless service.

“Hotels are like exaggerated versions of restaurants,” King once said, which is entirely true of the Beaumont. If you have ever spent a night at The Wolseley or The Delaunay and not wanted to leave, then this hotel is for you. It is also for Americans seeking a little home comfort; romancing couples; convivial gatherings or simply those in need of a moment’s respite from the pandemonium of Oxford Street.

On leaving the hotel, waving goodbye to Jimmy Beaumont’s world of romance, conker leather and chocolate sundaes, look out for the Antony Gormley figurative statue that crowns the hotel; the cherry on top of a thoroughly delicious evening.

From £495.00 for a Classic Room per night; 8 Balderton St, Brown Hart Gardens, Mayfair, London W1K 6TF, thebeaumont.com

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