Side by side The Connaught vs The Emory

The Connaught runs on the martini trolley, three genuinely excellent bars, Helene Darroze upstairs, and a staff that tends to know your name by the second day. That last part isn't a stray compliment. It shows up constantly, from the doorman keeping a family's taxi orders straight at breakfast to a bar manager remembered by name for small touches. The Connaught Bar alone is worth crossing London for, trolley-side vermouth selection and all, even if you never book a room.

The rooms are where the argument gets more complicated. Some guests land in a newly redone junior suite with a four-poster bed and love it; others get an entry-level room they call small, dark, or in need of a refresh, and the renovation has clearly been rolling through floors unevenly. The lobby's heavy floral scent splits people cleanly — some find it part of the charm, others found it genuinely bothersome enough to book elsewhere. And there's a real, if occasional, crack in the service reputation: a guest turned away for carrying a takeaway coffee, another laughed at over a phone charger, a bar door slammed shut eight minutes past a confirmed closing time. None of that is the norm, but it's not nothing either.

Book it for the bar and the restaurants first, the rooms second — ask what's been renovated before you commit to a category. If bar seating matters to you, know the Connaught doesn't have any at the counter itself; solo drinkers who want to perch tend to end up at Claridge's or the Rosewood instead. For everyone else, this is still the Mayfair address people return to year after year for the martini alone.

The Emory is the Maybourne hotel for people who'd rather have a quiet glass box next to Hyde Park than a grand lobby in Mayfair. It opened in 2024 with only 61 keys, all suites, and it reads nothing like its stablemates: Richard Rogers architecture, Andre Fu's floors at the top, an entrance so tucked away the doorman has to walk you to the lift. Some of the biggest suites in the city come with a free minibar that's actually stocked, a butler reachable on WhatsApp within minutes, and a spa, Surrenne, that multiple guests call the best wellness setup in London, with a 22m pool, a snow shower and Tracy Anderson classes.

The staff who get singled out by name do remarkable things, a doorman who came back with a printed class schedule for a guest's wife, a butler who arranged a birthday cake delivered to the minute. But the hotel is small and still finding its footing, and that shows up as inconsistency rather than a pattern of failure: one guest's check-in dragged over a payment glitch and a missed birthday note, another was told flatly no when they asked to speak to a manager after a dispute over room changes. The cigar lounge has drawn complaints of a cold front-of-house, and the public bathrooms near the rooftop bar are two shared stalls down in the lobby, which is a strange oversight for the money.

Book it if you want quiet, modern rooms with a park view and don't need the history or theater of Claridge's or the Connaught; the Berkeley next door shares the same spa and kitchen if you'd rather have a more traditional lobby attached to it. Families should know the hotel tolerates kids more than it caters to them. For a couple or solo traveller who wants the best gym and spa access in London wrapped in a genuinely private building, this is the one to book.