A calm space amid the capital’s chaos
JUSTIN CONNOLLY enjoys a weekend at one of London’s finest boutique hotels, The Halkin in Belgravia
THERE is special kind of atmosphere that you only find in the lobby of a fine hotel.
It’s a sense of discrete endeavour - a feeling that things are going on, important things, somewhere just out of sight.
And you know these things are going on for one reason, and one reason only - to make the time you spend in this place as good as it possibly can be.
This is the atmosphere you find on the lobby of The Halkin.
Firstly, this is a beautiful hotel – the angles are perfect and everything is in just the right place, and the service is magnificently easy and understated.
There are just 41 rooms and suites, which makes for a quiet and calm atmosphere. And what rooms they are.
A plain palette of colours lends a contemporary tone to the traditional Portland stone and arched windows, and the overall effect is one of sophisticated simplicity.
This was my second stay here. My last was perhaps a decade ago, and I recall thinking then that first impressions suggested it might become my favourite place to stay in the capital. And that I should definitely come back.
That stay was notable for a magnificent dinner we ate in the hotel’s fabulous restaurant, Nahm - a Thai spectacular which lingered long in the memory.
That’s all gone now, with the ground-floor space being occupied by the one Michelin-starred Ametsa with Arzak Instruction - described as “a unique collaboration between Elena Arzak – voted Veuve Clicquot World’s Best Female Chef in 2012 – along with her father Juan Mari Arzak, and Mikel Sorazu, Igor Zalakain and Xabier Gutierrez.”
It is a Basque restaurant of some repute, but our stay this time, alas, did not include time to enjoy the full experience.
We did however, savour the unusual Amesta take on the afternoon tea, which replaced the usual cakes and sandwiches with an astonishing collection of savoury tapas and desserts.
It was a magnificent experience – almost a mini fine-dining tasting menu, in which the presentation of the food gave little away about what might happen once it was in your mouth.
It was the kind of food that has you nodding and grinning in approval as you wordlessly attempt to express how it feels to eat it.
Even the descriptions on the menu gave little away - Ham Croquette, Duck and Shallot Skewers, Broken Eggs on Waffle - and were frightfully understated and ridiculously undersold the experience. Even if you don’t stay at the hotel, and even if you do - you should at least try the Afternoon Tea... and honestly, if the restaurant’s full menu is as good, I’m not sure I could handle it.
Just as the inside of the hotel soothes and refreshes, once on the outside you could not be in a better location.
Nestled amid the glorious Georgian splendour of Belgravia, you have Knightsbridge and Mayfair round the corner, Hyde Park on your doorstep, and the West End a pleasant stroll away on the other side of Green Park.
The hotel itself is around a three-minute walk from Hyde Park Corner’s Underground station. There are no downsides.
So, some 10 years after my first visit, and after a long decade of wanting to go back, I was gratified to learn one thing about my first impressions: I was right. And this is still one of the best hotels in London.