The Londoner Hotel — Restaurant in London

We stayed at the hotel this week for our anniversary. The hotel is brilliantly located (5 stars for that) right in Leicester Square. ||Check-in was great and the front of house team really made us feel welcomed. They wished us happy anniversary and told us they had upgraded our suite (we were paying £1,000 per night for 2 nights for our anniversary). They gave us a card with complimentary drink on the house for our special occasion (more on that later). Note, they took a £1000 holding charge on my account for extras, the most I have ever been requested - so be prepared!||The suite was fantastic and had a large lounge area and super king size bed. Room service took place every day - but no turned down. There was no complimentary drinks or snacks in the rooms and the prices for the mini bar were frankly obscene, so we didn't bother. ||The main bar you find as you come in to reception was a champagne bar. Service here was haphazard. We were directed to a table, but not asked if we wanted a drink. We were then asked to move as they had mistakenly seated us where someone was already sitting - but who had gone to the toilet. We were eventually seated but then had to walk over to the bar to request a drink - where 5 members of staff were stood chatting. I was advised no draught beer was available (I would have to go to the bar upstairs to get one and bring it down) - none of the 5 offered. Frankly not great service as you would find in other high-end hotels. So we requested glasses of champagne and were told to go back to our seat and we would be served. ||Eventually a waiter with a champagne trolly arrived and didn't ask us which we wanted, he just poured us 2 glasses from an open bottle Veuve, seemingly to finish it. We gave him our room number for the bill. Shortly after we left a waitress hurried over to us to present us with a bill to sign - which has an £8 service charge on it. While initially amused by her following us out the hotel, I'm glad she did, so I could remove the service fee as it was frankly not warranted.||The hotel is modern and has an excellent pool (though quite cold).It is surrounded by spa beds which were all shown as reserved (for people arriving 2 hrs after us i was told) and the jacuzzi was not working. The main pool was a good size, but far too cold, as was the room itself; as they had the air con blasting for some reason. A few tweaks (e.g. stop reservations for beds and heating) it would be fantastic area. The plus side was it was quiet.||Breakfast was average, with a good selection for continental breakfast. However, cooked breakfast was dreadful. My English breakfast came with a cold sausage and the bacon which was so dry I could sole my shoes with it. My wife's smoked salmon on toast was impossible for her to cut though due to the thickness of the sourdough. Coffee is served in very small cups and clearly from a machine, and lukewarm. Go for the continental with orange juice is my recommendation.||After a great welcome, the biggest disappointment was check-out. I checked the bill on the app (don't bother pre-checking in on it as you still have to go to reception to check-in). It showed they had applied 'optional' services charges and a charity donation. Why?! ||On check out I thought I would see if this would be mentioned, and the lady there referenced optional service fees that go direct to the staff. I asked for them to be removed as this should be included in the room rate. Also she didn't mention the charity fee which I asked to be removed. These additional fees amounted to around £60 may not be a lot in the grand scheme of the bill, but it is a principle.||The hotel, its location, room and spa are 5 star. However, it is let down by the attempt to grab money at every turn and cutting corners and areas where the hotel seems to lack an understanding of what great customer service is.||For example, the reserved beds in the spa....no one ever came down to them (reserved) as we were told they would. They were reserved so they didn't need to be redressed. As for the free drinks? We had the ignominy of presenting our voucher a couple of times only to be told it didn't apply to what we ordered. If the hotel wants to give away a drink on the house, don't leave the guests with the humiliation of being refused it. Perhaps leave a bottle of something in their room.....instead of plain water, or better still, just offer them a glass of champagne in the champagne bar they have to walk past to get to the lift.||This hotel could quite easily be 5 stars and deserves to be, but it is let down by...

Decided to stay a 2nd time (1st visit Xmas 2023) as my husband had another cancer treatment in London. Wanted to be in Chinatown, thought we’d try to make the trip a bit better, enjoy some Chinese food which we can’t get in Poland where we live. The Londoner makes it possible to walk to Chinese restaurants if hubby had discomfort or pain post treatment.

Most staff are good, but the hotel though new, has many issues. I could state all things wrong with the Londoner and its rooms, but it’s the worst experience (on 2 June 24) that I wish to share, in the hope no one else goes through it.

After spending over £300 on champagne & food at the bar in the lobby on my 3rd night, I went back upstairs happy, showered, went to bed. But was still hungry. The hotel food didn’t appeal as their food isn’t special to me, both 1st & 2nd visits, so didn’t order room service. I also wanted Chinese food which isn’t offered. I didn’t feel like getting out of bed & getting dressed to go out, so ordered food from a Chinese restaurant on UberEats. Went to the cupboard to get a bathrobe out, in anticipation of food arriving, found no bathrobe (hadn’t been replaced). Then my food arrived, spoke to front desk. Woman I spoke to was rude, told me to go downstairs to pick it up. I explained I’d showered etc, asked if she could get concierge to help bring my food to me. Still a flat “No”, worse, she told me to put on a bathrobe to go downstairs to the lobby! I told her I had no bathrobes. Still no, she didn’t care. I asked to speak to the duty manager - he had the same attitude! They insist a female guest who already had a few drinks, put on a bathrobe, go downstairs to a busy lobby with many non-staying guests going in/out, loud lounge music, people getting drunk, etc…? Luckily I didn’t even have bathrobes or I’d have done what they insisted.

The delivery guy rang me, shouted at me. I asked him to wait as at that stage I was still waiting to speak to the duty manager to try to sort it out, but he cancelled my delivery. I wondered why he shouted at me, and I believe staff at lobby must’ve treated him as badly as the woman and duty manager treated me. Or maybe they treated him worse but I’ll never find out since I tried but couldn’t contact him nor the restaurant after cancellation.

This hotel basically caused the delivery guy, the restaurant/ordering app to lose money. Makes me most sad and I couldn’t make it right for the poor delivery guy and restaurant after their efforts, as couldn’t reach them on the phone. Then a knock on my door later - bathrobes. The cheek of it.

I went to sleep unhappy & hungry, still in shock today on 5th day staying here. Regret I didn’t go back to stay at Como Metropolitan where I ordered food and the manager brought the food to my room himself. This is what real five star hotels are like - guess I got used to good staff who are polite, happy to accommodate over 50-year old guests like me, & happy to help with whatever I need in any way. I remember the Four Seasons Hotel in Singapore even offered to get their concierge to go pick up whatever food I wanted though I never needed to take up the offer as they serve beautiful Chinese food.

Few days left before checkout at The Londoner. Can’t wait to leave and forget all about this and their restrictions (the two bad staff claimed it’s “hotel policy”). Feel disgusted by the awful experience with the high prices I paid for my room. We’re already going through a hard time with my 70-year old hubby’s cancer treatment, didn’t need this bad experience, at what I thought was a good hotel, now realise it isn’t. Shame, as before it happened, I had a positive review in mind. Feel disgust when I go through the lobby now, since the horrible incident. I’m not happy nor enjoying my stay here. They don’t care, so I won’t return. Next time I’ll stay at a real five star hotel and take a taxi to Chinatown.

EDIT: day we checked out, almost everyone was great, especially Theodora who apologised. But 2 other staff were unfriendly and glaring at...

Sadly our stay at the Londoner was not a good experience...far from it. This is a 5 star hotel and we received 2 star service. We had major room issues including a leak in our room from the ceiling that leaked over our luggage (and no one ever came to clean it up or repair it despite multiple calls to the front desk)….to issues with staff, to giving us a wrong room than what we paid for. I’ll share a bit about the location first and then indulge you in a few specifics of our stay…

The hotel is in a great location. That’s the best thing they have going for them. You can walk to many popular attractions including the theater district, Covent Gardens, Big Ben, and more. China Town is a block away for late night dining. The world renowned Odeon movie theater (where they premiered Empire Strikes Back, Barbie’s European premiere and more) is right across the street. But on the flip side it is a very busy and touristy area. Sometimes you have to fight through the crowd just to get back into the hotel. We were worried about noise but the rooms are pretty well sound proofed.

When we arrived at the hotel the reception staff seemed under staffed. There was a wait and when we were checking in they somehow mixed up our room and put us in a different room than what we paid for (City view suite Junior). So we didn’t know this until we went to the room and saw we had a beautiful view of….a line of dumpsters and a parking garage. Yes $650/night will get you just that! We called down and no one ever came to help or move our bags. So after waiting 45 minutes we dragged our luggage back down (remember this is a 5 star hotel!) and spent another 30 minutes with reception staff (that seemed untrained) to get the room we paid for. Finally they gave us keys to our new room: not a junior suite though, because they had none left! …Despite the fact we paid for one. So we got a much smaller room, with an itty bitty window you can barely see out, nor lets much light into the room. But at least we weren’t overlooking a 1st floor dumpster anymore.

During the first night our ceiling started to leak. Not a small leak… a huge leak. A puddle accumulates in the middle of the room and I have to move our luggage, which got covered in it. I called immediately to the front desk. About 30 minutes later two maintenance people show up and say they’ll need to work in the room for about an hour or 2. I tell them it’s my wife’s birthday and we were getting ready to go out- could they come back in a bit? They shrug and leave, and no one ever comes back. We go out, and come back a few hours later. The floor is still covered in water - the roof still leaking. I call again to the staff who seem to care less about the issue. They offer to change the room the next day, because they are fully booked today. I ask them if they can at least clean the mess… they say “sure”, but no one ever comes. So we slept in our leaky wet room for another night. The next day we are offered a new room. But again, no one offers to help move luggage and no one apologizes. Seems insane for a 5 star hotel.

Honestly after this experience we didn’t even want to be in the hotel and couldn’t wait to leave. It’s the most unwelcome and uncomfortable I’ve ever felt and it’s one of the most expensive hotels I’ve ever stayed in. The staff was rude. The service was on life support. But they do have a...