Plates for the Masterchef generation
KNOWING what to do with the restaurant in a big hotel has a lw ays b e e n a bit of a conundrum. (Strange now to think that that’s what Jan Morris called her pioneering 1974 memoir of transitioning from male to female, “a riddle turning on some odd or fanciful resemblance between things quite unlike” — still, at least she didn’t choose “chimera”, a word best not looked up.)
On the one hand, any self-respecting hotel demands an impressive statement of its stature and fashionability as a fine dining destination for people not staying there. On the other, such an arrangement doesn’t well serve the needs of those staying there, who want to eat much less ambitiously most of the time or, to put it another way, not feel permanently unwell. The common solution to this conundrum is to have a second, cheaper bistro or café.
Aparthotels provide a different challenge. A good deal of the appeal of aparthotels is precisely that many travellers find being forced to eat out all the time expensive and irksome. Having a kitchen liberates them from that obligation. Yet even aparthotels need a restaurant too, one that is not offering home cooking yet somehow fits with the home-from-home ethos.
SACO, the Serviced Apartment Company, a business founded in Bristol in 1997, now operates more than 900 apartments in the UK, including in Cannon Street, Fitzrovia, Canary Wharf, Covent Garden, Holborn and Waterloo, and 80,000 around the world.
SACO’s new brand, “L ocke” — apparently named after the Enlightenment philosopher who thought we were born blank slates, bless him — aims to combine “the comfort and flexibility of service apartments with the design of a boutique hotel”. Leman Locke is the first such place, a glassy 22floor tower containing 105 studios and 63 one-bedroom suites, meeting rooms, a gym and, at its foot, a restaurant.
The idea is that travellers no longer just want comfort and efficiency, they want to feel part of the local community in “a space where like-minded travellers and locals can meet, work, play, share and live” (good, that permissive “live”). In the case of Leman Locke, what’s on offer is allegedly being “in the heart of London’s East End, within minutes of London’s most creative and vibrant areas of Shoreditch, Hoxton and Hackney”.
While it’s true that you might be within minutes of them, traffic permitting, helicopters assisting, Leman Street itself is a c h a r ml e s s thoroughfare in Whitechapel, heading south from Aldgate East. Never mind. The rooms have been trendily designed with pink L-shaped sofas by New York architects Grzywinski + Pons while the kitchens — “fit for a master chef ”, aye aye — come equipped with not just Smeg appliances but Hemsley & Hemsley hectoring cookbooks.
Supplying the diner to supplement this glory is Hyde Restaurants, created by Scott Ward, former MD of L’Anima in Broadgate. Bravely, Treves & Hyde has ventured forth onto the pavement under the hotel, with seating, plants and