Belmond The Cadogan vs Belmond Mount Nelson

Sixty-seven keys, and it behaves like a house with sixty-seven keys: staff learn your name by the first night, and the small gestures pile up fast. One couple mentioned an Arsenal game in passing at check-in and found official scarves waiting in their room two nights later. Another family got a teddy bear dressed on their daughter's bed and an anniversary cake they hadn't asked for. General manager Russell Pratt gets thanked by name often enough that he's clearly setting the tone rather than getting lucky once. The Chelsea location, opposite the private garden and a few minutes from Sloane Street and the Kings Road, is the other thing nobody argues with.

The catch is the base room. Deluxe rooms run small for the money, more than one guest has said the photos oversell the square footage, and one traveller was quietly rebooked from a junior suite into a standard room by a third-party booking error, only finding out the day before arrival. Book above the Deluxe category if you can. Wellness is thin too: there's no real spa program, and the gym has simply been shut during at least one recent stay with no fix offered. This is a townhouse, not a resort, and it doesn't pretend otherwise once you're standing in an empty gym.

Suite rooms are where the money is well spent: the marble-and-mosaic bathrooms get called out constantly, and Willetts' risotto and breakfast come up by name rather than as generic five-star box-ticking. One guest fought a billing dispute after a broken radiator went unfixed on night two, the sourest note in months of otherwise glowing accounts. Book a junior suite for the townhouse at its best: the marble bathrooms, Willetts downstairs, and staff who'll know your name by dinner.

The pink Cape Dutch buildings and gardens under Table Mountain are what people picture, but the reason people keep coming back is afternoon tea. Sommeliers like Zodwa and Craig walk guests through more than 70 teas with real care, the kind of ritual worth planning a trip around. It's the single most consistent thing here, and few hotels sustain anything that well.

Service ranges from thoughtful to careless. Michael checked in all week about a decaf tea order and fresh milk delivery; Wellington's personal tour set the tone for a whole stay. But a waitress during a rainstorm left guests to find their own shelter and rushed to present the bill instead, and the kitchen badly fumbled dietary requests at a 70th birthday dinner, serving eggs and chicken mayonnaise to guests who'd booked vegan. The pool deck's black marble side tables get hot enough in the Cape sun to blister skin on contact, which is a real hazard, not a quibble.

Next to design-forward rivals like Ellerman House, the Nellie trades on old-world theatre rather than newer design. The rooms are elegant but not cutting-edge, closer to a grand dame than a design hotel. That's a fair trade for most people, and nobody who's had the tea or booked the single-table Chef's Table with sommelier Lazarus walks away unconvinced. Book it for the gardens, the history, and that tea service: nothing else in Cape Town comes close.