The Berkeley

The Berkeley moved house in 1972. For most of the previous century it had stood at the corner of Piccadilly and Berkeley Street, a Mayfair hotel that took its name from the street in 1897. The Savoy group, which owned it, built a replacement on Wilton Place in Knightsbridge to designs by the architect Brian O'Rorke, and the name moved with the staff. The new building was modern, low and brick-faced, and it put a swimming pool on the roof under a roof that slides open in good weather. That pool is still the detail guests remember.

History

The Berkeley belonged to the Savoy group for most of the twentieth century, alongside Claridge's and The Connaught. When the Savoy itself was sold in 2005 the three remaining hotels became the Maybourne Hotel Group, and The Berkeley has been Maybourne's Knightsbridge house ever since. Its reputation in the 2000s was built on bars and restaurants: the Blue Bar, designed by David Collins and opened in 2000, Pétrus and then Marcus under Marcus Wareing, and Koffmann's, where Pierre Koffmann cooked from 2010 to 2016. Marcus closed in 2023 after fifteen years, and the same year Cédric Grolet, the pastry chef of Le Meurice in Paris, opened his first British patisserie off the lobby.

Architecture and design

O'Rorke's building was designed to be discreet rather than grand, with a plain street front and most of its interest inside. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners redesigned the entrance in 2017, adding a glass and steel canopy and a planted forecourt on Wilton Place. Inside, the hotel has been reworked room by room rather than all at once: Bryan O'Sullivan redesigned the lobby and the Berkeley Bar & Terrace in 2021, Collins' Blue Bar was refreshed in 2015, and individual suites have been given to designers including André Fu. The result is a house with several hands in it, which is part of its character.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 190 rooms and suites. The top-floor suites open onto terraces with views over Hyde Park and the roofs of Knightsbridge; the Opus Suite by André Fu is the best known of them. The rooftop also holds the cabins, a row of private garden rooms beside the pool that were added in 2020 for daytime use.

Dining

Cédric Grolet at The Berkeley sells his trompe-l'oeil fruit pastries and viennoiserie from a counter by the entrance and seats a small number of guests for dessert tastings. The Collins Room serves Prêt-à-Portea, the afternoon tea whose cakes are modelled each season on the current fashion collections, a Berkeley invention that has run since the mid-2000s. The Blue Bar, in Collins' Lutyens blue, is the room that put the hotel on the cocktail map. The Berkeley Bar & Terrace, opened in 2021, serves cocktails and small plates on a terrace facing Wilton Place.

Wellness

The rooftop pool, with its sliding roof, is open to hotel guests all year. The health club beside it has a gym, steam room and treatment rooms. Since 2024 guests have also had access to Surrenne, the members' wellness club that Maybourne opened beneath The Emory, its newest hotel, which stands next door on Knightsbridge. Surrenne occupies four floors with a pool, a gym, treatment rooms and a longevity clinic.

Weddings and events

The Berkeley hosts weddings and private dinners in its function rooms on the lower floors, and the rooftop is used for receptions in summer when the pool roof is open. Meetings are held in the same suite of rooms. The hotel does not publish capacities widely; planners should ask for the current floor plans.

Location

Wilton Place runs between Knightsbridge and Belgravia, a street of white stucco houses with St Paul's church at its far end. Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge stations are each about five minutes away, both on the Piccadilly line, which runs direct to Heathrow. Harrods is a short walk west, Sloane Street a shorter one south. For a luxury hotel in London that wants to feel residential rather than ceremonial, this is the address.