Simon Turton

Review of The May Fair Hotel

In early December I had to be in London for a few ...

In early December I had to be in London for a few days to take photographs of a new retail outlet one of my clients had delivered in Burlington Arcade. I wanted to be fairly close to the venue, so I chose The May Fair Hotel, which was a short walk from where I needed to be.

I arrived at the hotel around 4pm on Thursday and was greeted by a friendly receptionist who provided the keys and explained how things worked at the hotel; I was also told that the room had been upgraded at no extra cost.

I made my way to room 204, which was probably about as far from reception as you could be. A lift to the second floor, then along two long corridors and finally up a further flight of stairs.

At this point I didn t feel very upgraded and then I went in to the room.

Yes, it was a good size and the bathroom was generous, but it did not feel upgraded; the room was a disappointment. When you walk into some hotel rooms you immediately know that you re in a 5-star hotel, but this room with acres of bare drab walls and a few black and white prints, you could have been in any hotel at half the price.

Looking around the room for information I found three QR codes, which included information about ordering breakfast, the spa and the food offers. The problem was that I didn t want to have to stare at my phone to see what the hotel had to offer. Printed material would have been preferred so that I could have properly perused all the menus and considered which spa treatments I might have chosen.

COVID-19 might be the excuse for not having printed material, but at this level I didn t appreciate having to start snapping QR codes so I could choose breakfast or dinner. To get around any COVID-19 problems you would just need to provide disposable menus and hotel information.

It was the same experience in the May Fair Kitchen where I met a client for dinner on the Thursday a list of QR codes on the table and then having to scroll around the website in order to choose our food and drink. At Wetherspoons this might be acceptable, but in a fine dining venue I do expect printed menus and so I had to ask the waiter if they had any, which they were able to bring over.

I asked if I could order drinks before we ordered and was told in no uncertain terms that they could not take the drinks order until we had chosen what we were going to eat. This was very poor service and whilst the latest COVID-19 rules have only recently come in for Tier 2, I had booked a table at the restaurant and we were going to be eating.

The food was generally good, although my colleague was extremely disappointed with their main course the Spanish claypot which was a very thin, watery broth, which should have been sent back. The presentation and taste of this dish failed to compare to its ambitious description: "Our signature Spanish claypot: Spanish red prawns with garlic butter rice, paprika chilli broth and roasted kale".

When I asked for the bill I noticed that a 15% service charge had been added and there was also a line for adding a gratuity. If you re going to include a service charge you should not be inviting guests to tip their servers, who should automatically benefiting from this service charge in their salaries.

There were other issues, including no USB ports anywhere in the room. My only options was to plug the cable into the back of the TV so I could charge my phone.

I had to call room service to order breakfast, which took over 20 minutes to reach. The automated system offered an automatic call-back service, which didn t work. I simply had to keep calling until I got through.

I sent an email to the hotel with my frustrations and did get a call back; the person tried to excuse their poor performance and they told me that the room they had chosen was in the quiet part of the hotel.

The next time I have to be in London I will steer clear of The May Fair.