Rohit Malik's Qype reviews
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81 Great Eastern Street, 81 Great Eastern St London, London EC2A 3HU
Rohit Malik
wrote on 28 March 2011
The modern hotel is something of a rarity in a large city – it's affordable and homely yet stylish. The breakfast/dining room is in a glass-covered extension overlooking the garden, and there is a surprisingly slick bar area, open 24 hours, where you can order cocktails while you slave over a hot laptop. The 25 rooms are carefully designed to make the best use of available space with good showers and beds. The pay-off is its address – although there are several Underground stations within walking distance you are not in a central location.
An unbeatable address if you want to hang out in Soho, walk back from Theatreland or stroll to the British Museum. East meets west here, in one of the capital's first boutiques (opened in 1999). The interior of 78-room myhotel with attention to the principles of Feng Shui. The residents-only library is a Zen sanctuary, there is a treatment room, energy zone with exercise equipment and as well as a 24-hour bar serving food, the hotel now has its own branch of Yo! Sushi – London's conveyor-belt Japanese food chain. The top floor suite – named "myplace" – has a roof terrace with panoramic city views.
A warren of bijou quirky, character-packed rooms hewn from two Dickensian buildings, this hotel is a stone's throw from Smithfield meat market, the Old Bailey, Fabric nightclub and a host of hot restaurants. The antithesis of modern minimalism, expect wood panelling, flagstone floors, antiques, faded rugs and real fires. The cosy sitting room has an honesty bar with tiny conservatory and terrace off it for breakfast. Each air-conditioned room has a bathroom gleaming with beautifully restored period sanitaryware. Farringdon Underground Station, on the Circle Line, puts all major railway stations within reach.This restaurant with rooms, a short cab ride from the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras, pulls off contemporary design around a spectacular central atrium within a 19th-century warehouse. It was opened in 2004 by the people behind fashionable restaurant Moro – in nearby Exmouth Market – and The Zetter's Mediterranean restaurant similarly buzzes day and night. There are 59 rooms, a mixture of exposed brick and lofty windows, Seventies furnishings, walk-in "raindance" showers, vibrant accent colours and hand-printed wall panels. Room categories range from modest guest rooms to top floor studios with sundecks.
Don't be discouraged by the unprepossessing exterior, inside you'll find Frette linen, flat-screen TVs, cocktails and bistro-style dining. If you want to stay in the City of London's Square Mile, this "urban lodge" as it calls itself, is a modern bolthole. Brought to guests by the entrepreneur behind fast food sandwich chain, Pret a Manger, the idea behind The Hoxton is affordable luxury for business travellers with rooms rentable by the day, but its comfort levels and location work for holidaymakers too: the curry houses of Brick Lane, Tower of London and performances at the Barbican are within easy reach.A 20-room B&B with a difference – you can pay by the night, in the normal way, or if you think you might become a regular you can invest in a room. In return you get to use it 52 nights per year and receive a rental return the rest of the time. Media types rub shoulders with switched-on tourists in this converted now sleek with wood, leather and pristine bedlinen. Deluxe doubles and Terrace rooms are ensuite with wireless broadband and flatscreen TVs. In summer the main terrace is a popular hangout for locals between bouts of shopping.
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Models, the pop fraternity and those in the know retire behind the low-key entrance to this elegant neo-classical mansion off the famous Portobello Road. Forget pared-down functionalism, this place is all about sexy indulgence among drapes, flounces, potted palms and four-poster beds with splendid dashes of oriental exoticism for good measure. The bathrooms – with their Heath Robinsonesque Victoriana – are legendary. There is a restaurant and bar, 24-hour room service, and discounts at sister restaurant Julie's, in Holland Park. Or just chill in the peaceful mature garden or with free evening membership at arty local Cobden Club.·
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2-24 Kensington High St, 2-24 Kensington High St., London, W8 4PT, London W8 4PT
Royal Garden Hotel - Kensington
Rohit Malik
wrote on 28 March 2011
Royal Garden Hotel
2-24 Kensington High St., London, W8 4PT
Phone: 207-937 8000
Fax: 207-361 1991
Website: www.royalgardenhotel.co.uk
Commanding a ViewYou can have it all the next time you visit London: access to the city's greatest sights and nightlife and a commanding view of its serene parks and gardens from your lofty hotel room. After a renovation in 1996, the Royal Garden Hotel reopened to establish itself as one of the city's most contemporary hotels. The building's most dramatic points are its views, the marble lobby and raised Park Terrace restaurant. The assets don't stop there…enjoy live music every Saturday in The Tenth restaurant, a health club with a top London trainer, and world-class cuisine served with care. With all these features and Kensington Palace as a next-door neighbor, there's no reason why you can't have your cake and eat it too.
If the city's excitement leaves you feeling peckish, the chinese-inspired Min Jiang restaurant offers lunch and dinner, with special attention given to theater times. Located on the property's rooftop, it boasts views of Hyde Park and the London skyline and features seasonal menus. Min Jiang also houses its own bar. Park Terrace restaurant and bar are located on the lobby level and the restaurant serves a varied menu throughout the day. The views at Park Terrace are of Kensington Gardens and the driveway to Kensington Palace. Bertie's Bar overlooks the lobby and has Victorian décor and a library of books.
When the mood strikes you to exercise, Royal Garden extends a helping hand. Its health club and spa has personal trainers, nutritional analysis, beauty treatments, massage, a solarium, physical therapy and reflexology. When you're ready to venture out, the hotel is conveniently located near Royal Albert Hall, Victoria & Albert Museum, The Connoisseur Casino, antiques markets, and shops and restaurants on Kensington High Street.
Each of the 400 rooms in the hotel feature a desk area with a two-line phone and voice mail, fax and Internet access; air conditioning; satellite TV; mini-bar and hairdryer. Seating areas near the windows offer good views and bathrooms are luxurious. Suites are worth the extra quid, offering features such as dining rooms, kitchenettes, cloakrooms, CD players, VCRs and DVD players; opening windows; marble and wood accents; multiple bedrooms and conference tables.
Need space for a meeting? Ask the staff about the hotel's conference and meeting rooms; with 15,000 square feet of space you should be easily accommodated. In town for pleasure? Live it up with the services Royal Garden offers all its guests: a concierge, room service, business center, limousines, and florist, babysitting, valet for laundry and dry-cleaning, doctor and dentist on call, meet-and-greet at Heathrow Airport, and luggage unpacking. Whatever your preference, look no further than the Royal Garden Hotel…unless it's to gaze out the window.
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1 Kensington Court, 1 Kensington Ct. London, W8 5DL, London W8 5DL
The Milestone Hotel - Kensington
Rohit Malik
wrote on 28 March 2011
The Milestone Hotel & Apartments is — dare we say it — a milestone in hotel design. Playful without being kitschy, frothy while dignified, it achieves the desired hip factor without playing to the trends.
Situated in two refurbished Victorian townhouses across from Kensington Palace and gardens, the boutique Milestone features interiors imagined by designer Bea Tollman, who exhibits both signs of a multiple personality (we consider this a compliment) and a healthy respect for the hotel’s eclectic past — previously, the property and its predecessor served as the home for a man pretending to be Shakespeare’s grandson, the model for Pushkin’s Countess in Queen of Spades, a lunatic asylum and a Jesuit seminary.
Each of the 45 bedrooms, twelve suites and six apartments has been individually and uniquely decorated, some with fireplaces, and each is worthy of its own small ode. Among our favorites, the Savile Row Room is contemporary in a natty, Michael-Caine-in-his-Alfie-heyday sort of way, while the ornate and very traditional Club Suite, with its upstairs salon and antique billiard table, invites visions of the Brideshead crew. We find the discreetly regal Prince Albert Suite, and the Tudor Suite, with its sculpted Victorian ceiling, particularly attractive, but every accommodation is sure to find a loyal enthusiast, since there’s a room to suit every type of personality.
The dashing Conservatory
Every room and suite is different
Of course, style doesn’t get very far without substance, and The Milestone isn’t getting by on good looks alone. Suites come with 24-hour butler service, evening canapés and the use of a Bentley for airport transfers; and the two-bedroom, two-bath apartments include welcome grocery packs, full kitchens, washing machines and DVD/CD players. While the hotel doesn’t exude the stale air of a corporate lodging, it does welcome traveling suits with Business Ready Rooms offering additional workspace and wireless high-speed Internet access, suites for corporate events and an Executive Club. The hotel also accommodates female travelers with services such as specially allocated rooms, female service staff, extra space in the bathrooms and more.For such an intimate property, The Milestone has a notable collection of onsite facilities. The dashing Conservatory — site of traditional afternoon tea — features delightfully non-traditional black chairs, black and white checked pillows, black and white striped curtains and chic black and white prints of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. Not in touch with your inner Truman Capote? Head for the refined Park Lounge, or the Stables Bar, where the smell of saddle soap and whinny of horses is just a daydream away. The formal Cheneston’s restaurant offers an international menu with an emphasis on modern British cuisine and a solid wine list.
Beyond the dining rooms, is the fitness center. The hotel's Infinity Resistance Pool puts the fun back into health and fitness. Swimmers can swim against the current and, if they so desire, do lengths. If you're looking to further your workout, the hotel's Health Club is an exercise, relaxation and fitness oasis with a fully equipped gym, the latest cardiovascular equipment, weights, Jacuzzi and sauna. And if you're looking to go that extra mile, jogging across the street in Kensington Gardens is always an option.
Across the street from Queen Victoria’s birthplace, embraced by vast gardens, adorned with leopard print carpets and awash in genteel charms, The Milestone Hotel & Apartments fuses past and present, classic and modern, to create a model for 21st-century hotel living.
The Milestone Hotel & Apartments is the crown jewel of the elegant, small Red Carnation Hotels chain, which boasts six properties in London along with one in the English countryside and one in South Africa.
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Chandler's Cross Rickmansworth Hertfordshire WD3 4TG, London
Rohit Malik
wrote on 28 March 2011
A hop and a skip from London, on 300 acres of Hertfordshire parkland and open countryside, a luxurious lap of luxury was unveiled in September 2003. The Grove was quite the fashionable spot in its glory days—during the 18th and 19th centuries that is. The magnificent former estate of the Earls of Clarendon is about to remerge grander than ever.
Country Estate charm melds with cosmopolitan chic and ultra-modern technology to offer Londoners and visitors the ultimate escape via 22 rooms and suites with gorgeous balcony or terrace view of the surrounding gardens and parklands, linen-lined walls, original art, ornate marble fireplaces, porcelain chandeliers, plasma screen TVs, children's welcome box, newspaper…
Says interior designer Mary Fox Linton: "So many things have influenced The Grove's design—the smells from the garden—roses, lavender, honeysuckle, as well as the taste of the best English food, with produce straight out of the kitchen garden on the estate, the touch and feel of soft, rich, textured fabrics."
Guests can wile the hours away in romantic formal gardens, scented spaces and private terraces. Or they lounge in the 19th century, five-acre Walled Garden complete with an 82-foot pool, space for 1000 people throwing a pool party, two tennis courts, a croquet lawn and a potager for herbs and flowers. The Grove's spa, Sequioa, will feature 12 treatments rooms and a purified salt-water vitality pool. The glorious championship 18-hole golf course was designed by Kyle Phillips to seamlessly blend into its environs.
Guests dine at Colette's, The Glasshouse or the more informal Stables in the golf house. Cocktails are taken in The Lobby Bar. Kids are looked after in a fully staffed nursery and via cooking classes, nature walks, tree house and kid's pool.
The intention was to bring together its aristocratic history, its grounds, trees, woodland and its proximity to London. The result is a breath of fresh country air mixed with the buzz of the city.
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Dukes Hotel St James's Place, London SW1A 1NY., London SW1A 1NY
Rohit Malik
wrote on 28 March 2011
Dukes Hotel, in the very heart of London's St. James's Place, is "one of London's most civilized hotels," spelling discretion, intimacy and understated elegance.
Owned by David Naylor-Leyland since 1994, Dukes underwent a £5 million facelift in the past five years, which restored it to its former glory. Guests will find the 89 rooms and suites furnished with period furniture, objets d'art, fine paintings and porcelain. All have air-conditioning, en-suite marble bathrooms, private bar, room safes, satellite television and two line telephones with dataport and voicemail.
Guest services include 24-hour concierge, butler, valet service, housekeeping, 24-hour room service, secretarial services, airline reservations, theatre bookings, same day laundry and dry cleaning, overnight shoe cleaning, and limousine and car rental on request.
Dukes is housed in a preserved Edwardian building, tucked in a tranquil, flower-filled, gas-lit courtyard with Buckingham Palace and Bond Street within walking distance.
Dukes Bar is infamous for mixing a stiff, dry martini, but you might want to opt for one of the famous cognacs - some over 150 years old - collected by the hotel. Three beautifully decorated dining rooms are dedicated to private dining, meetings and luncheon or dinner parties for between six and 120 people. An extensive health spa is also available.
Single Rooms from £195; Double Rooms from £225; Suites from £350; Penthouse from £550. All rates exclude Government Tax.
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33 Roland Gardens London, SW7 3PF, London SW7 3PW
Rohit Malik
wrote on 28 March 2011
Eclectic Edge
Dramatic Style in a Classic Townhouse SettingA striking reception at Blakes
Not for the faint-hearted but definitely for travel connoisseurs, this theatrical hotel in a series of late-Victorian townhouses was the first venture of Anouska Hempel, a.k.a. Lady Weinberg, the wife of leading city financier Sir Mark Weinberg. The dramatic results reflect her fashion and acting background.Blakes's style is esoteric with strong themes running through each room's décor, from Biedermeier furniture to black Oriental lacquer. There are lots of swagged curtains, trompe l'œil wall treatments and marble in the bathrooms. Each bedroom is different, startling and idiosyncratic, some with painted floorboards, others with fantasy beds.
Some might accuse Hempel of over-decoration, and fans of minimalism should definitely steer clear, but this place is enormous fun and not surprisingly goes down big with celebrities who make up most of the guests. No doubt they appreciate the gorgeous aesthetics and amenities such as fireplaces and private balconies.
Downstairs, Blakes restaurant displays Hempel's keen interest in the Orient, with Japanese "Kyoto Country Breakfasts." There is also an expensive but beautifully executed international menu that attracts a glamorous clientele. The hotel has an affiliation with Holmes Place health club. It has a sister property in Amsterdam.
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Unit 21 & 22b Hammersmith Broadway Shopping Centre, London W6 7AL
Rohit Malik
wrote on 15 March 2011
213 W. 5th St.
(512) 320-8424
Antone's is another top-notch live music venue in Austin. It opened in 1975 as the first club on 6th Street, though it later moved to 5th Street. It began as a blues club and featured performances from B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Pinetop Perkins, and other blues greats. It now also features country and rock music. It is open to all ages and claims to have helped launch the career of many local musicians. Many major acts have graced the stage since the blues era, such as Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, and Bono and The Edge (of U2). The venue is open and gives you enough room to breathe, and the crowds tend to be laid-back -
London SW1P 3JX
Rohit Malik
wrote on 15 March 2011
603 Red River St.
(512) 477-3667
Emo’s is a small, downtown music venue with an outdoor stage and a smaller indoor stage. There is also an outdoor beer garden for those who don’t like to be in the middle of the crowd. Emo's primarily features alternative music, such as indie rock, hardcore, punk, alt-country and metal. You can find both small local acts and major national acts here. It is generally considered a hangout for the tattooed and pierced crowd, though the crowds depend greatly on which type of act is playing that night. Be warned that for some intense shows on the larger stage, mosh pits tend to form. -
London SW1P 3JX
Continental Club - Westminster
Rohit Malik
wrote on 15 March 2011
1315 S. Congress Ave.
(512) 441-0202
This music club has been a staple in Austin's music scene since 1957. It began as a hip, private supper club and grew into Austin's first burlesque club in the '60s. It continued to book great acts over the decades (including Stevie Ray Vaughan), and in the late '80s, the new owner designed the club to look like it did in the '50s. The Continental Club usually features swing, rockabilly, country, and retro roots music, but it attracts and welcomes all types. Many great local acts perform here. -
London SW1P 3JX
Rohit Malik
wrote on 15 March 2011
214 E. 6th St.
(512) 479-0474
This hip music venue in downtown Austin features beautiful hardwood floors and a great selection of beer at the bar. It is a very clean and well-kept venue with fantastic acoustics and lighting. The Parish Room chooses to be non-genre specific, though many of the artists who play here can be classified as some form of rock (many indie rock).
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23 October 2012