For years, the COMO Metropolitan London was the place to stay in London if you wanted to be seen. During the late 1990s and early aughts, the hotel’s exclusive, members-only Met Bar was paparazzi central and that era’s representatives of Cool Britannia: Kate Moss, the Gallagher brothers and all of the Spice Girls made the hotel their unofficial clubhouse. Non-members were so desperate to get a taste of the legendary party scene that they’d often book hotel rooms simply to gain access to the bar.
Twenty years on and the hotel has decided it’s time to grow up. The fashionable people haven’t abandoned the hotel by any means, as is clear one evening when I spot Claudia Schiffer and a small entourage glamorously arriving at the hotel’s Nobu restaurant. Instead of late nights and debaucherous excess, however, the hotel has pivoted – thanks to a total refurbishment of the lobby, guestrooms, events spaces and the bar, as well as the addition of a Como Shambhala Urban Escape spa – to put the emphasis on wellness enhanced by the latest technology.
LOCATION, LOCATION
Occupying a prime corner of Park Lane overlooking the green expanse of Hyde Park in London’s Mayfair neighbourhood, and a short stroll from Green Park and Buckingham Palace, there is hardly a more central or bucolic location in all of London. Knightsbridge, Soho and Covent Garden are all easily accessible by foot while nearby Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner underground stations offer quick transportation to more far-flung areas.
DESIGN
A combination of Italian and British furniture, while contemporary, evokes a kind of 1950s jet set exotica. My room, a junior suite with a bank of tall windows overlooking the park, is flooded with natural light during the day, and is sculpturally illuminated at night thanks to a combination of shadow gaps and dimmer controlled, recessed spotlights. In keeping with the hotel’s wellness emphasis, there’s even a dedicated yoga channel on the (humungous) TV.
BEST AMENITY
It has to be the spa. COMO Shambhala spas are widely recognized as among the finest in the world for both quality of service and products as well as innovative therapies and cuisine. Here, the Urban Escape Spa, one of five in the world besides Bangkok, Miami Beach, Perth and Singapore, is a clean, minimalist space with six treatment rooms. Therapists clad in white Armani greet clients with hot tea before their treatments. I’d love to be able to tell you more, but I fell into a deep, mouth-gaping sleep within minutes of my signature COMO Shambhala Experience massage starting.
WHOM YOU'LL MEET
Guests tend toward the pampered and refined, but the hotel remains popular with a wide and, frankly, bizarre collection of international rock stars from Marilyn Manson to the entire lineup of hardcore death-metal rockers Slipknot. The clever inclusion of built-in children’s beds/window seats give the hotel newly added family travel cache, as well.
IF I COULD CHANGE ONE THING
Bathrooms, while serviceable and comfortable, don’t achieve the same level of exquisite comfort that the bedrooms do. Better water pressure and the elimination of those irritating rain showerheads would be a quick improvement. Unless, that is, you’ve booked the penthouse suite; it’s magnificent bathroom – with its freestanding, egg-shaped tub overlooking the park – is unforgettable.
EAT IN OR EAT OUT
It depends. Guests of the hotel who have never eaten at a Nobu restaurant before owe it to themselves to stay in and try the yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno and the legendary black cod with miso. Everyone else probably should probably take advantage of the fact that London is now the world’s most diverse and delicious restaurant scene.
COMO Metropolitian London; Old Park Lane; comohotels.com/metropolitanlondon; 144 rooms from $475
The writer was a guest of the hotel.