HOTEL REVIEW: TEN MANCHESTER STREET
THE HOTEL:
If you are staying in the West End, you can’t beat Marylebone. Manchester Street is a quiet Georgian number where the houses bear the discrete silver plaques of osteopaths and accountants. The hotel is in a reassuringly traditional building through a lovely doorway. Inside, reception is dinky, but a big smile and a warm welcome show that you are in safe hands. I could glimpse a civilised, dark bar where guests were sitting and sipping appealing-looking glasses of beer. There is also a heated cigar-smoking terrace with a bespoke humidor designed by Hunters & Frankau, the UK’s only supplier of Cuban cigars. This does everything you’d expect of a modern boutique hotel without pushing any envelopes.
THE ROOM:
Well, on this score I was lucky – I was upgraded to the Grand Suite, the largest of the 45 rooms. The living room was spacious, with a table, elegant Christopher Guy sofas and armchairs, a kitchenette with a microwave, wine glasses in the cupboards and a 36-inch flat screen television on the wall.
The bedroom is a slick affair with a king-sized bed, and the bathroom had a massive, curved free-standing bath and a very soothing rain shower with marble walls.
Even through we looked out over the street, we weren’t disturbed by any noise. On the minus side, there was nowhere to put your clothes when you took them off – a chair might have spoiled the look, perhaps.
FOOD AND DRINK:
That it is just a few minutes from the restaurants of Marylebone High Street is one of the main reasons for staying here, but if you don’t want to venture out there then a good, Modern European menu is available in the bar area, including burgers, beef fillet and chargrilled tuna.
Breakfast is always the test of a hotel, and they managed it pretty well. While the missus went for a continental breakfast that consisted of lots – in fact, too many – pastries, my Northern soul was unable to resist the lure of black pudding with the Full English. It was a thing of beauty, if your idea of beauty consists of pig served in several ways with some very creamy scrambled eggs (it is mine).
IN A NUTSHELL:
A convenient, conventional boutique hotel in a very good West End location – and ideal for cigar-lovers.
Rooms from £169 a night, Grand Suite £509 a night.
www.tenmanchesterstreethotel.com, tel: 0870 111 627
Jeremy Hazlehurst ends