How Do Two London Luxurious Lodges Examine? Testing the Chancery Rosewood and Raffles on the OWO.

Is there a metropolis with extra top-end resorts than London? From grandes dames like Claridge’s to newcomers just like the Six Senses London, an abundance of selections awaits vacationers within the class shorthanded as U.H.N.W. (that’s “ultrahigh net worth”).

Among the most recent and most acclaimed, each in historic buildings: Raffles at the OWO, which opened in 2023 within the Old War Office in Whitehall, and the Chancery Rosewood, which made its debut in 2025 within the former U.S. Embassy on Grosvenor Square in Mayfair.

How do they stack up? To discover out, we carried out a five-star face-off, reserving an entry-level room at every lodge for 2 nights (I booked underneath my husband’s identify to hide my New York Times affiliation and paid the total price). Ahead of our keep, we requested the concierges to help us with dinner and bar reservations; after check-in, we took benefit of the health facilities and swimming pools, ate breakfast, had cocktails, wandered the halls and customarily made ourselves at dwelling.

Both resorts delivered the anticipated: robes, slippers, turndown service, complimentary welcome snacks (with handwritten notes from administration), small-label toiletries in refillable bottles, high-thread-count sheets and blissful quiet. Both have fancy spas, signature eating places by well-known cooks and well-equipped 24-hour gyms. Our arms didn’t contact plastic: Water got here in glass bottles and milk for espresso from diminutive jars within the fridge. The key card on the Rosewood was a slim wood sq. with the lodge’s identify etched into it; on the Raffles, it was a inexperienced leather-based rectangle.

I’m not actually a luxurious lodge particular person. My perspective: I’m not touring to spend time within the room, so why pay the cash? Give me clear, properly designed and throw in free breakfast, and I’m joyful. During my final keep in London, my room was so small I couldn’t stroll across the mattress. That was not a problem this time.

Most hanging was a stage of thoughtfulness and unstuffy conviviality: Staff members greeted us by identify and requested about our plans. The Rosewood not solely put order to my tangle of charging cords on the bedside desk, but in addition secured them into loops with small leather-based straps. At the Raffles, when my husband complained that the cover was too scorching, housekeeping changed it with a lighter blanket.

Oh, and there was a experience in a Bentley.

The Chancery Rosewood

The particulars: We booked a Mayfair Junior Suite Twin (although we requested for and obtained a king mattress), and paid 1,410 kilos an evening, plus a nightly £70.50 lodging service cost, which is distributed among the many workers, or about $2,000 an evening, together with taxes (breakfast and incidentals weren’t included). That made us pikers on the Rosewood, the place the grandest suites, referred to as homes, can run over 3,500 sq. toes and value effectively over £25,000 an evening.

You enter the lodge on the bottom flooring, and mount a grand staircase to the primary stage (there are additionally elevators), the place you’ll discover a lounge space with a hovering atrium, glossy couches, tables and a two-sided hearth, concierge and check-in desks, and eating places tucked into the corners (there are six, together with an outpost of the recent New York restaurant Carbone). The décor contains large sprays of flowers and twinkly trendy chandeliers.

Designed by the Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen, the constructing opened in 1960 because the U.S. Embassy, which for safety causes was moved to a different location. In 2009 the constructing was sold to a Qatari investment group, which chosen the Hong Kong-based Rosewood model. The British architect David Chipperfield transformed the 600 or so workplaces to 144 suites, with interiors by Joseph Dirand, a French architect and designer. The look is trendy understated magnificence, with plenty of darkish wooden, and fabric-paneled partitions in shades like moss and ecru.

The Chancery wears its historical past calmly, with few apparent nods to the constructing’s previous aside from the large eagle perched on the entrance facade, which lends its identify to the rooftop Eagle Bar.

The Mayfair Junior suites clock in at roughly 600 sq. toes. In our room — which supplied a treetop view of townhouse-lined Upper Brook Street — a dressing space led into a big house separated into dwelling and sleeping sections. A curved sofa sat towards one wall of floor-to-ceiling home windows. The toilet was an expanse of deeply veined inexperienced marble, with double sinks, a deep soaking tub, a walk-in bathe and a separate rest room. Shortbread cookies had been laid out for us (replenished each day) and the nonalcoholic gadgets within the minibar have been free.

The first morning we grabbed a fast breakfast at GSQ, the lodge’s ground-level cafe. The subsequent day we ate at Serra, the Chancery’s light-filled, Mediterranean-style restaurant overlooking Grosvenor Square.

Hits: The lodge gives free pickup and drop-off on the airport or prepare station and has no set check-in or checkout time. When you might be prepared, so is your room. Coming off the red-eye at Heathrow, being pushed to the lodge and brought straight to our room felt priceless.

Misses: The 25-meter pool, whereas attractive with tiles in shades of inexperienced, was at bath-water temperature (virtually 89 levels Fahrenheit, the attendant advised me), too heat for severe swimming.

Before our keep, we had requested the concierge to make a dinner reservation for our first evening. At the appointed time, we confirmed up on the fashionable Mayfair Chippy, sliced by way of the group exterior and introduced ourselves on the check-in stand. No reservation discovered. Back on the lodge, the concierge booked us at one other restaurant. Later, when my husband reached out by e-mail, he was advised that one of many concierges, unable to get the Chippy on the telephone, had walked over to safe a desk, and that the restaurant had erred. Whoever was accountable, it took an edge off our pampered weekend.

At checkout, the concierge supplied compensation: A experience to our subsequent cease in the home automotive, a Bentley Bentayga. Feeling fairly self-conscious, I gave my battered wheelie to the chauffeur who loaded it into the automotive for the drive to Paddington Station.

The particulars: We booked a Classic room, however have been upgraded to a barely bigger Superior one at check-in. It value £900 an evening, plus a nightly £45 service cost (additionally distributed among the many workers), or near $1,280 an evening, together with taxes, however not breakfast or incidentals.

The OWO, accomplished in 1906, is a large pile of white Portland stone with turrets and sculpted figures symbolizing Peace and War, Truth and Justice, and Fame and Victory perched alongside the entrance facade. Winston Churchill labored there throughout World Wars I and II; Ian Fleming frolicked there through the latter. In 2016, the British authorities offered it to the Hinduja Group, an Indian conglomerate, which developed it right into a lodge and residences underneath the Raffles model. The inside design is by Thierry Despont, the French designer and architect, who died in 2023.

Unlike the Chancery, Raffles wears its historical past on its sleeve, with “heritage” suites named after Churchill and others (the most important of those, named for Lord Richard Haldane, a secretary of state for battle, is nearly 1,950 sq. toes and prices £18,000 an evening), each day excursions and a basement speakeasy referred to as the Spy Bar that celebrates Fleming and sits behind a door numbered 007.

The lodge is on Whitehall, a serious vacationer axis. When you enter, you face a marble-and-alabaster staircase for which the phrase “grand” is inadequate. It’s lit by a double-globed chandelier and a domed skylight. A purple carpet with black-and-cream stripes covers the steps.

But until you might be staying in a second-floor suite, you actually don’t have any cause to climb it, as check-in, eating and a few spa providers are all on the bottom stage. So, too, is the dark-and-woody Guards Bar and Lounge with its plush seats, horse-themed artwork and glorious variations on basic drinks.

Hits: The pool took my breath away. From the huge, double-height entrance space, a dramatic, curving staircase led to it. While the pool was solely 20 meters lengthy, the water was cool sufficient for actual swimming.

Glass-fronted elevators within the authentic wooden housings supplied a glimpse of every flooring as we rode up and all the way down to our room. Like Babar within the division retailer, I might have ridden all of them day.

Misses: At about 365 sq. toes, our room was, effectively, only a lodge room (to be truthful, it was about £500 an evening cheaper than the Rosewood suite), with a toilet and a dressing space that led to a king mattress, a desk and numerous cupboards. Though we have been on the fifth flooring, the view was principally of a parapet wall embellished with crops, although if I stood on tiptoe I might get a glimpse of Big Ben and the Victoria Tower.

On our last morning, we ate within the very clubby Drawing Room, the place I sank down thus far into one of many sofas that my chin felt as if it was at desk top. I switched to a chair that was too heavy to budge nearer to the desk to eat. My £26 scrambled eggs got here with H. Forman & Son smoked salmon, however the leisurely tempo of service meant I needed to bolt them down earlier than taking my unhappy wheelie to catch the Lizzie Line to Heathrow.

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