The Peninsula London

The Peninsula opened its London outpost in 2023, the Hong Kong-based group’s first UK hotel, in a purpose-built block on Grosvenor Place overlooking Wellington Arch and Hyde Park Corner. It arrived with enough scale and confidence to sit comfortably alongside long-established Belgravia neighbours like The Berkeley and The Lanesborough.

Rooms are large by London standards and the bathrooms in particular have drawn consistent praise, marble-heavy and generously proportioned in a way few central London hotels manage given space constraints. The spa and wellness centre includes a 25-metre pool, thermal rooms and an ice fountain, a genuinely serious facility rather than the smaller wellness suites many hotels offer as an afterthought.

Brooklands, the hotel’s showpiece restaurant, occupies the top floors with panoramic views and a design built around a 1920s Bentley theme, a nod to the historic racetrack. It is ambitious cooking in a genuinely striking setting, though it comes at a price that puts it firmly in special-occasion territory rather than a casual dinner spot.

The courtyard, designed by Enzo Enea with mature Japanese maples transplanted in, is one of the quieter pleasures of the hotel and a good spot for afternoon tea away from the main lobby’s bustle.

Being new, it lacks the accumulated history that places like Claridge’s or The Connaught trade on, and some guests have found the atmosphere a touch corporate compared with London’s older grand hotels. For sheer scale of facilities and room comfort, though, it is one of the strongest recent hotel openings in the city.

The Peninsula group traces its history back to Hong Kong in 1928, and the London property is only its second European hotel after Paris, which explains the significant investment behind the opening. Rates start at the very top of the London market and climb steeply for suites, putting it firmly alongside the city’s most expensive addresses rather than competing on value. Given how recently it opened, service standards are still bedding in slightly compared with hotels that have run at this level for decades, though most accounts describe the experience as already highly polished.