The height of hotel luxury at The Dorchester
Oct 23 2009 by Richard McComb, Birmingham Post
Big Ben and the London Eye are off to the right. Turn 180 degrees to see Hyde Park. You could fit a cricket wicket along the front of the terrace and two more down each side.
The suite is yours for just £3,700 a night. It’s a bargain, really, especially when compared with the hotel’s Royal Penthouse, the former London gaff of the Sultan of Brunei. The four-bedroom duplex comes in at £17,600. I had a peak around the bling palace and had palpitations brought on by the colour scheme and the decadence. My suite – because the Oliver Messel Suite is now my suite – is far preferable, and offers a saving of almost £14,000.
Needless to say, strolling round one’s private rooms is exhausting so I decide to retreat to the sanctum of The Dorchester spa. General Dwight D Eisenhower may have planned the Normandy Invasion from his suite, but I plan pleasure.
The subterranean spa has re-opened following a stunning £3.2 million revamp. The Dorchester spa is truly, effortlessly relaxing, the Thirties’ Art Deco chic paying tribute to the hotel’s era of birth. There are silks, satins and leather, restful splashes of blue and ivory, plush chairs and daybeds. Naturally, there is shed-loads of peace and tranquillity.
For my treatment, I am left in the capable, soothing hands of Antipodean Rebecca and experience, incontrovertibly, the finest massage of my life. Unusually for me, I don’t fall asleep but enter blissful unconscious consciousness. Should you tell me there is a better way to spend £145, I will guffaw in your face.
After a spell in the post-treatment Relaxation Room, I heroically summon up the energy to take the lift back to the seventh floor to assess the dining options. The Promenade, the cavernous centrepiece to The Dorchester’s ground floor, offers capacious seats and plush private dining spaces.
The place is famed for its quintessential English afternoon teas but it also serves à la carte lunches and tasty suppers. One evening, I enjoy a starter of scallops with onion puree, fig and raisin jus (£20.50) followed by a good fillet of beef on potato rosti, artichoke and beans with prune jus and foie gras (£35). A charity bash is in full swing in one of the ballrooms. A singer from Destiny’s Child is there. Fortunately, I evade the paparazzi.
It’s amazing how quickly one becomes accustomed to the five-star life. When I dress for breakfast, I put on a daring V-neck black sweater, with no vest, just like Simon Cowell. I look at myself in one of my suite’s 500-odd mirrors and notice my chest hair. Too much, I ask myself? And find myself replying out loud: “Darling, it’s impossible to have too much chest hair.”
I do, however, dress for dinner later that the day. I have a date in The Grill, and kick-start proceedings with an epically fine Vesper Martini in The Bar. Head chef Brian Hughson, who I pop through to thank later in the evening, has put together a superb menu with fancy stuff alongside some faultless British grills.
Starters include a warm salad of roasted quail, carpaccio of Angus beef and Scottish langoustine. I choose the latter, served with green beans and lemon grass puree, deep fried langoustine and pine nut ravioli (£17.50). It is preceded by a taster of fennel soup with chives. All good.
The main event tops everything: traditional roast grouse with game chips and roasting juices (£36). It is carved at the table by Naia, a Brazilian-born Italian. She has an awesome de-boning technique, done with spoons of all things, and I would happily let her perform heart surgery on me.
The grouse is cooked to perfection, brilliantly simply, yet deftly complicated to do. It is complemented by a young Chianti Classico which head sommelier Jason McAuliffe serves in a darling decanter for one. The combative Chianti works well with the bird because it is young, says Jason, who is a genius.
“It’s got a hint of death. Spooky,” he says, raising his eyebrows, Hammer House of Horror style. And you know what? He’s dead right. Death has never tasted so alive.
■■ For more information, go to www.thedorchester.com, or telephone 020 7629 8888.
■■ To make an appointment at The Dorchester Spa call 020 7319 7109, or email spa@thedorchester.com
■■ Richard McComb travelled first class with London Midland from Birmingham New Street to London Euston.
