The Cadogan Hotel

This superb and quaint little venue is perfect for an afternoon tea visit. I bring guests from out of town here all the time and they always love it. Their tea selection is vast and their sandwiches are average, but their scones are really really good. Far too much cake for the two of us to finish and we also got a complimentary glass of champagne.

The fact that it was also a regular hang out for Oscar Wilde is just the icing on the cake!

The Cadogan is a great hotel in the centre, Sloan St, a lovely Victorian style hotel, elegant and beautiful.
The rooms are superb, spacious and welcoming, and the staff are very helpful and kind.
Nice bar with great drinks, a nice stay altogether.

I was so disappointed with this hotel bar. I've wanted to come here for about three years - after discovering it was the hotel that Oscar Wilde was arrested in, I figured it would be an excellent way of mixing my love of literature and cocktails.

And when we finally found the place i was very excited (up by Pont Street rather than on Sloane Street). We were directed to the bar, through a rather tired looking drawing room (with some rather out of place artwork on the walls). We were greeted with a tiny, empty bar (save for one woman reading a paper).

There was no barman to be seen and the bar itself was littered with debris. A swanky hotel bar shouldn't really have bottles of Peroni as their bar display either in my opinion. We'd been so excited about coming here, that we almost stuck it out.

But we didn't, we turned around and left. We might have had to explain to a barman where we were going, but we don't know where he was.

I don't want to give this place 1 star - without trying the drinks I don't think that's fair. But it's really not an impressive hotel and if you're coming here, don't expect to be wowed.

I stayed at the Cadogan in January, when London was in the grip of the coldest winter in 20 years and we all felt the icy blast of the first global recession in history. On a Friday evening, there was no-one in the ground floor bar except me and a portly American financier who drank Jamesons and told me fancy five-star places like this were finished. Golf clubs were finished too, he said, as were spa resorts. He asked me what I did for a living and said that was finished.

He drained his glass and left me to my thoughts. If he was right, it seemed to me that there were few better places to drink a final toast to quality than this Victorian gem. Things could be worse. I thought of poor Oscar Wilde arrested at the Cadogan in 1895 and cast into Reading Gaol. Yes things could be a lot worse.

I slept well in a sumptuously appointed de luxe double room, enjoyed a munificent breakfast and went on my way with a spring in my step. My joie de vivre was due either to the restorative powers of a fine hotel or the fact that, in the spirit of the age that was closing, I had just run up a hefty bill that somebody else would pay.