Hotel Café Royal

In 1865 a French wine merchant named Daniel Nicolas Thévenon, newly arrived in London one step ahead of his creditors, opened a small café off Regent Street. He called himself Daniel Nicols, borrowed Napoleon's imperial N for his crest, and within a decade the Café Royal was the most talked-about dining room in the city. Hotel Café Royal, which opened in the same building in December 2012, is the latest chapter of that address at 68 Regent Street, on the boundary of Soho, Mayfair and St James's.

History

The café's nineteenth-century clientele is the reason the name still carries weight. Oscar Wilde held court in the Domino Room and met Lord Alfred Douglas there; the Marquess of Queensberry's confrontation with Wilde in 1895 began in the same rooms. Aubrey Beardsley, James McNeill Whistler, George Bernard Shaw and Augustus John were regulars, and the wine cellar was among the deepest in London. Regent Street was rebuilt in the 1920s, and the Café Royal was rebuilt with it behind a new Portland-stone facade by Sir Reginald Blomfield, completed in 1928. The Grill Room, with its gilded mirrors, caryatids and painted ceiling, was kept.

In the twentieth century the café became a venue for banquets and press events. Winston Churchill, Elizabeth Taylor and Muhammad Ali all passed through, and on 3 July 1973 David Bowie held the party at which he retired Ziggy Stardust, with Mick Jagger and Lou Reed at the table. The Café Royal closed in December 2008. The Alrov Group, owner of The Set Collection, converted it into a hotel with David Chipperfield Architects and Donald Insall Associates, and Hotel Café Royal opened in December 2012.

Architecture and design

Chipperfield's hotel sits inside Blomfield's Grade II listed shell. The public rooms on the ground and first floors are the historic ones, restored by Insall: the Grill Room, now the Oscar Wilde Lounge, with its mirrors and gold leaf, and the Pompadour, the Louis XVI ballroom used for weddings and balls. Above them Chipperfield built new floors of bedrooms in a restrained palette of pale stone, oak and white plaster that deliberately avoids competing with the rooms below. The contrast between the two is the point of the building.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 160 rooms and suites. Rooms on Regent Street have the curved windows of the Blomfield facade; those at the back look over Glasshouse Street and the roofs of Soho. The historic suites on the lower floors keep period panelling and higher ceilings, while the signature suites on the upper floors are Chipperfield's.

Dining

Afternoon tea is served in the Oscar Wilde Lounge, which is the way most visitors see the Grill Room. Ziggy's, the bar named after Bowie's 1973 farewell, opened in 2018 with photographs of the night on its walls. The Green Bar on the ground floor is the hotel's cocktail bar, and Cakes & Bubbles, a dessert bar created with the Spanish pastry chef Albert Adrià, has a street entrance on Regent Street. The hotel's main restaurant has changed concept more than once since 2012 and should be checked before booking.

Wellness

Akasha Holistic Wellbeing occupies the basement across 1,200 square metres, with an 18-metre lap pool, a hammam, a sauna and steam room, a gym and treatment rooms. It is one of the few hotel spas in central London with a lap pool of that length.

Weddings and events

The Pompadour ballroom is the principal wedding and gala room, with a mirrored Louis XVI interior and a sprung floor. The Oscar Wilde Lounge is used for ceremonies and receptions outside tea hours, and a set of smaller rooms on the first floor serves board meetings and private dinners. The hotel is licensed for civil ceremonies.

Location

The hotel stands at 68 Regent Street, a minute from Piccadilly Circus station on the Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines, with Soho behind it, Mayfair across the street and St James's to the south. Heathrow is a direct Piccadilly line ride. Among luxury hotels in London it has the most central address of any, and the loudest one too; rooms at the back are quieter.