Why go?
For a post-wedding pause that doesn’t trade Mayfair for noise, or discretion for design. Mandarin Oriental Mayfair is urban sanctuary with silk-lined swagger.
Honeymoon style
For quietly fabulous couples who collect art, dabble in omakase and have very strong feelings about limestone. Think Tokyo meets Berkeley Square, with better service.
Set the scene
Mandarin Oriental’s second act in London isn’t here to scream. It doesn’t need to. On one of Mayfair’s oldest squares, beside the Royal Academy and round the corner from where Nancy Mitford once lived, this quietly dazzling hotel has slid into the capital’s high-gloss hospitality scene with the quiet confidence of someone wearing Loro Piana head to toe. No logos. No selfies. Just poise.
Gone are the chintzes and chandeliers. In their place: a palette that reads like a Farrow & Ball fantasy, with green-veined marbles, fluted oak, soft brass, all folded into architecture by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and interiors by Studio Indigo and Curiosity. The entrance is intentionally discreet, tucked off Hanover Square, with a lobby that feels more Kyoto townhouse than Knightsbridge grande dame. A spiral staircase of jade stone swirls up like a sculptural flourish. A vertical wall of orchids murmurs that everything is alive and curated.
You won’t find crowds here. There are only 50 rooms, and the clientele, mostly European and mostly well-moisturised, moves at a different tempo. The house car is electric, the smiles are fluent in five languages, and the staff glide around as if this is their living room and you’re a very welcome guest.
Some guests emerge late from spa treatments, others from deep-pocketed shopping stints on Bond Street. A quiet clink of glass in ABar Lounge. No jazz hands. Just a fizz of calm. And in summer, the courtyard opens, a pocket-sized Eden of hedged serenity, shadowed by a vertical garden and made for those long, lazy breakfasts that somehow turn into lunch.
This is a hotel for those who’ve outgrown the big and brash. It’s the type of place that doesn’t just reflect taste, it reflects restraint.
Rooms
The rooms are composed. That’s the word for it. Not just designed, composed. Think Japanese joinery meets Savile Row, sharp tailoring, hushed tones, everything where it should be.
Even the smallest rooms feel like you’ve stepped into a very well-kept secret. No shouty patterns, no gimmicks, just a quiet layering of linen, lacquer and eucalyptus wood. The walls are panelled in pale silk, lighting is warm and directional (thankfully no overhead shockers), and the bedside controls are gloriously intuitive. You don’t need a PhD in lighting design to turn off the lamps.
The Mayfair Suite is the one to book for honeymooners. With its private terrace looking out across rooftops and steeples, it feels like the quiet back room of a gallery, art on the walls, thick carpets underfoot, the minibar hiding behind hand-veneered cabinetry. The bathtub is so big it might technically qualify as a plunge pool, with Diptyque scents and towels thick enough to count as clothing. Details matter here: frosted glass sliding doors, a bed that swallows jet-lag whole, and a coffee table book selection that suggests someone cares.
It doesn’t woo with flash. It envelops.
Food and drink
Akira Back is the headline act, and it’s worth the billing. Moody lighting, slate walls, a showy emerald staircase, this is where the city’s fashion editors and Mayfair regulars slide in for toro and tempura. Chef Akira Back brings Korean flair filtered through Japanese precision (and a brief flirtation with Colorado, which shows up in the odd wagyu taco).
Start with the AB Tuna Pizza, not a pizza at all but a paper-thin slice of joy topped with truffle oil and micro shiso. Then move to the soy-glazed short rib, cooked for so long it barely needs a fork, and the black cod that slips apart with nothing more than a glance. Sushi here is not an afterthought, order the yellowtail and let the wasabi hit just behind your eyes before the sake smooths it out.
The bar, ABar Lounge, is a jewel box, dark, quiet and easy to get lost in. The ‘Ink’ is the signature martini: cloudy, dark, gently bitter. It matches the mood and the walls. The terrace, when open, is ideal for a late breakfast with a newspaper and no plans. Or a last drink before a less elegant taxi home.
Breakfast is at Akira too, but forget buffets. Truffled eggs, matcha pancakes or miso soup. Nothing fussy. Just clean, precise comfort.
The story
Before the Mandarin Oriental arrived, this corner of Hanover Square housed the old Westminster Bank, its stolid facade a relic of the square’s quieter, more institutional past. Rather than papering over the old bones, the developers, Clivedale London and Mandarin Oriental, opted to start fresh. They commissioned Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners to create a building that would converse with its Georgian neighbours but speak in a very modern register.
The result is a slim, red-brick structure that rises with a sculptural simplicity. Inside, the narrative is layered. Studio Indigo and Tokyo-based Curiosity have crafted spaces that draw on Mayfair’s history of quiet glamour and international intrigue. You will find Ming green marble, jewel tones that shift with the light, and an architectural flow that steers you gently from arrival to repose.
The hotel opened in 2024. It is Mandarin Oriental’s second London chapter but feels like a very different story. No grand ballroom, no peacocking. Just precise, beautifully judged design and the kind of considered service that has already made it a magnet for Mayfair’s most discreet regulars. A place where old-world Mayfair tilts subtly into the new.
Spa
Descending into the spa feels like entering a vault of calm. It’s low-lit, low-voiced and extraordinarily beautiful, all dark stone, shoji-inspired partitions and hushed corridors that lead you deeper into stillness.
The pool, a long narrow lap of serenity, sits beside a vitality pool with slate-black tiling and water just shy of steaming. There are infrared saunas, a snow shower, steam rooms and the sort of stillness that makes you check your phone isn’t accidentally on speaker.
Treatments are not fussy or fiddly, they’re deep, technical and soothing without being soporific. The Oriental Qi massage remains a signature, but it’s the ‘Mayfair Reset’ facial that newlyweds should book, tailored masks, lymphatic drainage and a finishing touch of LED therapy that leaves skin gleaming like Japanese lacquer.
Couples can cocoon in a treatment suite together, with herbal tea and heated loungers afterwards. It feels more retreat than hotel spa, and it lingers.
Eco-friendly
Sustainability is embedded rather than performed. There’s a BMS-controlled energy system, discreet composting, and sourcing that favours British growers and low-carbon producers. No slogans. No greenwashing. Just silent, smart systems that feel entirely on-brand.
Location
Hanover Square is Mayfair at its most discreet. Moments from Bond Street, yet just off the main artery enough to exhale. The Royal Academy is a short stroll, as are Dover Street’s independent boutiques. Heathrow is 40 minutes away, but you’ll be in no rush to return.
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