1 Hotel Mayfair — Hotel in London

This Morning, I Got Mad at a Berry Bowl

Not symbolically. Not as some metaphor for inequality or the emotional toll of modern life. No - I got genuinely, viscerally mad at a £16 berry bowl during breakfast in a luxury hotel in Mayfair. Room 712 - Lux Skyline Terrace. Which, in marketing terms, means: the view is great, the silence is curated, and yes, you’re definitely overpaying.

The hotel itself plays all the right notes. The kind of place where the marble is real, the light is soft, and the staff downstairs greet you like they’ve been waiting just for you. You sleep well, you wake up thinking life isn’t so bad - and then you go down for breakfast.

That’s when the system kicks in. See, breakfast here isn’t really breakfast. It’s a controlled ritual disguised as hospitality. One starter. One main. Extras - if you dare.

I chose a croissant as my starter. Simple, elegant. Then asked for a berry bowl to go with it - just some fruit, nothing dramatic. That’s when Sylvia, the restaurant manager, appeared with the expression of someone about to cancel your frequent flyer miles.

“The berries aren’t included,” she said. “That’s an extra £16.”

I laughed. She didn’t.

“You get one starter and one main,” she clarified. “Everything else is charged separately.”

So if you want avocado as a side, fine. But if you ask for smoked salmon with it? That’s extra. Like, full-item-on-the-bill extra.

And again - it’s not the money. If you’re paying Lux Skyline Terrace rates, you’re not exactly counting coins. But that’s the point. The fact that they are. The fact that someone decided the customer should sit at breakfast and mentally calculate how many items they’re “allowed.”

It’s like renting a Rolls-Royce and being told the music costs extra. Not Spotify - just any music. Drop a coin in the dashboard if you want to hear something with your leather and silence.

The next day, housekeeping skipped our room. We were there, we were gone, we were back - nothing. Only after we asked at the desk did someone eventually come to tidy up. Barely.

All these things - the berry bowl, the vacuumed silence, the vanished cleaning staff - they stack up. They chip away at the illusion.

Because real luxury isn’t decor. It’s not the view or the thread count or how rare the wine list is.

It’s the absence of friction. It’s a world where no one asks you to justify your breakfast.

And where the berry bowl is already waiting - no questions, no...

What a terrible terrible hotel reasons below,, clearly we have been duped to book this hotel by good reviews we now relise are all fake as you read some and people are being offer money for the making a good review, and not even any comments.

Firstly as a guest of the hotel you are not allowed to use the Hotel Bar for a drink, this is a private venue bar, never have I paid £380 for a room for the night and not allowed to use the Hotel Bar as it’s not for guests of the hotel

Arrival, The Room was not ready and it was agreed we leave the cases and they would give my a call on my mobile when the room was ready, 4 hours later no call, and no apology for no call, we then realised we were staying a at Hotel not interested.

Hotel Reception, the worse ever, it was shocking, the small amount of seats were all taken wiry people with Laptops liked a office and there was not a single seat for us to sit while waiting for the room, I asked where are the seats the staff said they is never any seats available in reception, again this is a first for me.

Rooms are very very small, smallest ever.

Bed was comfy though.

Coffee machine hopeless

Outside Hotel was a mess.

Breakfast was a disaster, we waiting 50 minutes for coffee and juice, the food arrived after 35 minutes which was fine, but still no drinks after mentioning to staff 3 times and then asking if I could make myself, the omelette arrived fridge cold on a plate, my wife asked is it suppose to be fridge cold, they didn’t know, it went back it looks like the omelettes are pre cooked kept in fridge and reheating to serve but they forget to re heat it.

If you ask a question the hotel staff just walk off, you thinking their coming back with answer and they don’t actually come back to answer, it’s crazy how rude they are without your realising at the time.

We stayed at the 1 Hotel because of the good reviews, clearly now people have screen shot offers of money for good reviews so we have been duped, I hope people read this review to stop people...

Sadly a very disappointing experience. Let me go through a couple of highlights:

1/ The quality of the breakfast was extremely low. The bacon was dried out (burned?), the french toast was tiny and tasted like a croissant soaked in butter. The service was extremely slow (and menu misleading) and no one came refilling the coffee (I would think that’s standard when drinking regular black coffee?).

2/ The rooms are extremely small. I understand it’s in the center of London but I literally couldn’t even open my suitcase.

3/ I was having a juice in the lobby from the shop next door whilst waiting for my colleague when the person from the reception told me I cannot have a drink from outside in the hotel lobby. Really? I pay $1k/night for the room and I cannot have a juice in the lobby whilst waiting for my colleague (who was also staying at the same hotel).

4/ One night I came home to an open hotel room door, which the cleaner had left open after cleaning the room. I had my passport and all my valuables in the room.

5/ The next day the cleaner forgot one of her cleaning cloths in the bathroom on top of my personal belongings (also not very nice knowing that the cloth she uses to cleaning the bathroom room is placed on my toiletries bag).

6/ Besides check-in I didn’t get any more face towels. I had to ask the room service for it and they were only able to deliver it the following day.

7/ the laundry service doesn’t operate on Sunday.

8/ The rooms are extremely badly insulated from noise. On Saturday I could barely sleep as I heard the extreme noise from the street (hotel is next to a busy road with many nightclubs etc) until 3am in the morning. On other days I could hear every time someone was using the elevator.

9/ At checkout I asked to get the bill emailed but I still haven’t received it (despite sending a follow up email).

Overall, extreme unprofessional and disappointing experience. Glad to be traveling back home. Definitely not a 5 star...