Marriott Grosvenor Square

Situated in the heart of Mayfair and originally built as a large majestic townhouse, the London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square, has undergone the first phase of a major multi-million pound refurbishment at the hands of United Designers, who took their inspiration from “the great residences of Mayfair,” reinterpreting classic English detailing and style across all areas of the hotel.

The project has seen the creation of 45 new luxury club rooms and suites, an exclusive Club Lounge, and a new Gordon Ramsay restaurant – Maze Grill – headed up by Jason Atherton, who also runs the adjacent Maze restaurant.  

Despite its name, the hotel faces not onto Eero Saarinen’s American Embassy building on Grosvenor Square, or the concrete barriers, demonstrators placards and visa queues which surround it. Instead the hotel’s main entrance faces onto Duke Street, with the Grosvenor Square facing entrance reserved for the original Maze, and now Maze Grill. Subtle enhancements have been made to the entrance, including a re-landscaped forecourt with box hedging, revolving glass doors, and a new double marble staircase leading down from the lobby to the hotel’s extensive conference and banqueting spaces on the lower ground floor where several new meeting rooms have been introduced alongside the grand ballrooms.

But it’s in the bedrooms that returing guests will notice the biggest difference. These are amongst the most contemporary and stylish bedrooms you will find anywhere in Marriott’s portfolio of over 520 hotels worldwide.

The red, gold and green carpets, curtains and bedding that epitomise the traditional design of most Marriott guestrooms are nowhere to be seen. In their place, each room features a luxurious four poster bed, fireplace, tiled floors, and marble bathrooms with rainfall showers. Flatscreen TVs are subtly integrated in gloss lacquer panels. The lines are crisp, clean and contemporary, the colour palette a muted one of creams, cocoas and moss greens. Twelve of the suites on the first floor face inwards into the void at the heart of the hotel, and feature a private courtyard garden complete with external fireplace. Guests in these rooms also have access to the hotel’s new Club Lounge, with its leather banquettes, comfy armchairs, and a striking tear drop chandelier.

But the real jewel in the crown is the Maze Grill restaurant. Modelled on the steakhouse grills found in New York, this eighty cover restaurant ‘s raison d’etre is the serving of various cuts of superb quality beef from across the world on its specially imported broiler. Diners can watch Atherton and his brigade at work from the  ‘butcher’s block table’, hewn from of a single piece of English oak.

The London Marriott Hotel
Grosvenor Square
London W1K 6JP
Tel: +44 (0)207 493 1232
www.marriottgrosvenorsquare.com

Rooms: 289 guestrooms & suites

Food: Maze, Maze Grill

Drink: Club Lounge, conference, meeting & banqueting areas

Words: Matt Turner

Photography: Edmund Sumner