My stressful night at London’s ultra luxe £1k a night hotel where I found glass in my food
Glass in my food and someone else’s safe code sent to my room: The £1,000 a night Six Senses London wellness hotel that caused a night of anxiety. By Adam Bloodworth
Six Senses’ new Bayswater hotel is one of only a handful in the capital that can command north of a grand per night, putting it in the company of The Emory, The OWO and The Peninsula. The brand is owned by the multinational corporation InterContinental Hotels Group, having been bought for $300m in 2019.
It is not the kind of place where you expect to find glass in your dinner… But that’s what happened to my guest during my stay this summer. We were eating in the restaurant, Whiteley’s Kitchen, when he – thankfully – felt the offending shard in his mouth just before he swallowed it.
A front-of-house employee apologised but the chef did not, and junior members of the service team were left to deal with the situation. One – trying to salvage the unsalvageable – made a joke about our “crunchy” salad. Builders were in the kitchen during breakfast the following morning, suggesting they may have been the cause. Ingesting glass, as you surely know, can kill or seriously injure you. Luckily, he was fine.
The next day, the hotel’s general manager offered my guest a complimentary stay. He decided that would be a nice gesture and emailed the manager to arrange the visit, but two weeks later he had received no response (the offer did eventually materialise).
My stressful night at Six Senses London
The hotel offered to host me again in a complimentary suite (we’d had a smaller room before) so I could experience a stay more “representative” of Six Senses. But what could be more representative than… a stay at the Six Senses? I’d already done that. It wasn’t like the hotel was in its soft launch: it had been open for months. A Hollywood A-Lister was eating dinner next to us, and the property was open to the public on the night of the incident. “If there’s glass in a journalist’s food, what’s happening to the ordinary guests?” one industry pal asked after my stay.
Some other, smaller but nonetheless dysfunctional things happened. Another guest’s safe lock code was sent to me via the hotel’s app. Multiple times when we ordered food or drink on the app, a staff member had to call the room anyway to check on the order. In-room apps are supposed to be helpful, but they add friction, requiring you to make an account and link that account to your room number in order to be used. Why, when there’s a phone next to the bed, which they called us on anyway?
Ironically for a hotel brand angled around wellness, this was one of several times technology pointlessly impeded my stay. At the spa, before my massage, I was asked how much I drink, smoke and sleep on a daily basis. There were so many pages of questions that I felt stressed before my treatment. In the recovery room, I laughed with another paying guest, a skincare expert, at the irony of technology invading wellness spaces. She initially refused to fill in her iPad questionnaire, but was told the information was essential (ask me what pressure I’d like, sure, but why the Spanish inquisition about how much I drink? Is this data being used to sell me products?).
In a statement to Morning Wire, an unnamed spokesperson for Six Senses London said: “We are very sorry that aspects of the stay did not meet the high standards we set for ourselves. The safety and wellbeing of our guests is our highest priority, and we have taken additional steps to reinforce the controls and procedures we have in place to prevent this from happening again. We have been in direct contact with the guest, apologised for the shortcomings experienced and have learnt from the feedback provided.”
All of this is a shame because there is a world in which this could be a very good addition to the London hotel industry. The lobby features the original wrought iron staircase that’s been repurposed from when this building was the former Whiteley department store, one of the few remaining parts from the original building which dates from 1911.
The impressive white columns of the facade remain, although some have been moved from the Queensway frontage to the hotel entrance on Redan Place.
Bedrooms, like the public areas, are spacious and characterful. Clever lighting creates a warm and relaxing atmosphere, with yellow hues dividing the bathroom from the bedroom. Throws, mid-century chairs and tiling are in naturalistic washes of burnt orange, blue and earthy brown. A vintage dressing table stores independent drinks brands, one of the carefully chosen statement pieces (less is more when it comes to these, like with the apothecary tables placed around the building).
There’s a particularly Interesting event space dedicated to making your own herbal remedies, with floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with potion bottles.
The bar’s cocktail menu serves every drink with both alcohol and alcohol free options, an inclusive gambit that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Whiteley’s Kitchen serves seasonal dishes such as stone bass with fermented cabbage, roast leeks with wild garlic romesco and English walnuts and pork chop with green mole and shishito peppers. It was great, apart from the obvious.
But the obvious is what you need to get right one hundred per cent of the time. Getting it wrong is nothing short of catastrophic.
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