Revisiting Newly Refurbished Royal Lancaster London. | LUX LIFE LONDON

The last time I’d stepped foot in Lancaster London was for our blogger’s Christmas afternoon tea way back in 2014. Since then they’ve had a £40million refurb and re-branded to Royal Lancaster, turning it from a 4-star to a 5-star hotel. And the change has been so great that I didn’t recognise the place at all. I stayed for one night and was blown away by how beautiful the design of the hotel is. It’s very on-trend right now and is full of gold, marble, bold blues and turquoises, and with beautiful gigantic mirrors everywhere.

I was staying in a studio room on the ‘luxury’ floor (the only floor with dark wood rather than light wood), with a breathtaking view over Hyde Park and Notting Hill, and it had one of the largest hotel bathrooms I have ever seen, and a stunning one too that’s made entirely of marble. I adored the blue-green sofa and chair, and am now furiously browsing home sites to find one for my future-home.

The room had everything you could possibly need; two large wardrobes, a safe, ironing board, books, mini-bar, Nespresso machine, complimentary bottled still water, tasty biscuits, and the lovely White Company toiletries in the bathroom! The bed itself was insanely comfortable with marshmallow pillows to rest your head upon.

All of the rooms have individual quirks, books, and decorative items in keeping with the local area. For example some of the rooms have mini Mini’s in them on the shelves, because part of the Italian Job was filmed at Royal Lancaster!

Food-wise the hotel has it all. Nipa Thai is an authentic Thai restaurant created by the Thai owner of the hotel for his wife. It is named after her, and all dishes are authentic and true to what you would actually find in Thailand. The hotel also offer afternoon tea in the lounge, and the breakfast I had was decadent and fit to rival my daily breakfast at the Google office (which is saying something – did I tell you we have 13 different types of bread to choose from at work!?).

The Hyde Lobby Bar was closed still when I visited, and should be reopening in the next few weeks with a fresh new look. Royal Lancaster was actually the place I first met Aftab, who is now one of my closest blogging friends, and it was truly fascinating to see the extensive changes that have taken place with the refurbishment.

Although I didn’t really need to use the staff much, when I did they were wonderful and really helpful. I enthusiastically arrived a little too early and my room wasn’t ready yet, so they gave me a free wifi password and showed me upstairs to the casual dining restaurant and bar where I could relax and wait. They even gave me a free drink voucher to use while I was waiting! I obviously went all out with this and had a peppermint tea…

I had the loveliest stay at Royal Lancaster, and while many luxury London hotels are really quite tired these days, it felt nice to stay in somewhere so new and with such great attention to detail! Not to mention the proximity to Lancaster Gate tube for getting to work the next day on the Central Line was possible the best location possible.