
5-star hotel
The Dorchester
If you think The Dorchester is just for dowager countesses and oil tycoons, you haven’t seen the Vesper Bar on a Friday night. Following a massive renovation, this Park Lane icon has dusted off the doilies while keeping the legendary ‘Green Coat’ service—recently crowned ‘Hotel of the Year’ at the 2024 AA Hospitality Awards—impeccably intact. The Promenade remains London’s finest theater for people-watching, flanked by Liberace’s mirrored piano and Corinthian columns, but the energy has shifted. Upstairs, the new rooms feel like walking into an English garden, with Colefax and Fowler floral fabrics and marble bathrooms stocked with full-size Wildsmith Skin products. But the real draw is the culinary schizophrenia, in the best way possible. You have the hallowed, three-Michelin-star silence of Alain Ducasse serving hand-dived scallops, juxtaposed against the thumping bass and ‘lobster thermidor tarts’ at The Grill by Tom Booton. It’s loud, it’s unapologetically expensive (yes, the water is £9), and it’s absolutely thrilling. Verdict: The Old World just got a very New World facelift.








